r.  z^:ci^ 


Stem  f^e  feifiratg  of 

OprofesBor  Wiffiam  J^enrj^  (Breen 

Q0equeat^e^  6l?  ^tm  to 
f^e  &i6rarc  of 

(ptinceton  C^eofo^icdf  ^etninat)^ 

13S\Z25 


SOURCES    OF    HISTORY 


PENTATEUCH 


SIX   LECTURES   DELIVERED    IN   FRfNC  /ON    THEO- 
LOGICAL   SEMINARY,     ON    THE    STONE 
FOUNDATION,    MARCH.    iS8s 


SAMUEL   C.    BARTLETT,   D.D.,   LL.D. 

Tresident  of  Dartmouth   College 


New   York 
ANSON   D.   F.   RANDOLPH   &   COMPANY 

900    BROADWAY,    COK.    2oth    STREET 


Copyright,   1883, 
By  Anson   D.   F.   Randolph   &   Companv 


ST.  JOHNLAND  ■  PRINTED    PY 

STEREOTYPE   FOUNDRY,  EDWARD    O.    JENKINS, 

SUFFOLK   CO.,   N.    Y.  20   NORTH    WILLIAM    ST.,   N.  Y. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTUEE  FIRST. 

THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY 1 

LECTURE  SECOND. 

EABLY    MAN 36 

LECTURE    THIRD. 

THE    EABLY    ARTS 76 

LECTURE   FOURTH. 

THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES 116 

LECTURE   FIFTH. 

THE    EARLY    MOVEMENTS    OF    THE    NATIONS        .       .    148 

LECTURE    SIXTH. 

THE    EARLY    DOCUMENTS 180 

APPENDIX. 

EXTRACT    FROM    STRACK    ON    THE    PENTATEUCH      .    217 


SOURCES   OF   HISTORY   IN   THE 
PENTATEUCH. 


LECTURE    FIRST. 


THE    EAKLIEST    COSMOGONy. 


The  five  books  of  Moses,  like  the  Revela- 
tion of  which  they  form  the  grand  propylae- 
um,  have  in  our  day  been  chiefly  put  upon 
the  defensive.  As  many  a  writer,  indebted 
to  the  Christian  system  for  his  ethics,  has 
received  the  gift  and  disparaged  the  source, 
so  have  a  large  class  of  investigators  gained 
invaluable  and  indispensable  aid  from  the 
Pentateuch,  and  then  endeavored  to  use  its 
own  frank  utterances  to  invalidate  its  autho- 
rity. And  so  the  portico  has  been  viewed 
rather  as  a  beleageured  fortress. 

I  propose  in  this  brief  course  of  lectures 
to  abandon  the  negative  position  and  set 
forth  in  the  direct  and  affirmative  aspect 
the  claims  of  the  Pentateuch  as  a  book  of 
origins,    containing    the    sources    of   all   our 


2  HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

earliest  consecutive  knowledge,  and  alone 
solving  those  great  questions  concerning  the 
human  race  which  must  be  asked  and  which 
lie  otherwise  unanswered.  While  an  unpar- 
alleled assiduity  and  variety  of  research  are 
enlarging  the  boundaries  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  past,  and  a  marvellous  ingenuity  is 
unlocking  the  historic  secrets  which  seemed 
to  have  perished  with  their  original  possess- 
ors, it  remains  none  the  less  true  that  these 
results  are  fragmentary  and  often  incoherent, 
till  they  are  laid  beside  the  one  central  and 
continuous  story.  This  is  the  substantive  ac- 
count, they  are  the  adjuncts.  For  unexplored 
centuries  down  to  the  time  of  him  who  is 
called  the  Father  of  History,  the  Pentateuch 
walks  alone  but  with  unfaltering  step  over 
the  pathway  of  the  past.  And  it  is  begin- 
ning to  appear  more  and  more  clearly,  as  I 
shall  attempt  incidentally  to  show,  that  our 
function  is  not  to  defend  it,  much  less  to 
apologize  for  it,  but  to  unfold,  explain  and 
follow  its  guidance,  properly  understood,  in 
the  well-grounded  assurance  that  it  will  give 
more  light  than  it  receives  from  these  mod- 
ern researches,  that  they  are  to  be  brought 
thither  in  good  degree  to  be  tested,  and  that 
they  must  be  laid  beside  it  in  order  to  give 
them  any  complete  coherence  and  valid  "sig- 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  3 

nificance.  And  in  a  great  measure  their  use 
is  to  serve  as  furnishing  the  illustrative  facts, 
whereby  its  brief  statements  and  often  ob- 
scure hints  shall  be  clearly  understood.  In 
discussing  this  subject  it  is  inevitable  to 
begin  with  the  familiar  if  not  hackneyed 
theme  of  The  Earliest  Cosmogony.  The  dis- 
cussion is  by  no  means  superfluous.  For 
perhaps  no  theme  has  suffered  more  in  the 
handling,  whether  from  friendly  or  hostile 
pens.  Largely,  if  not  chiefly,  from  misap- 
prehension of  the  aim  and  method. 

All  fair  criticism  of  any  composition  must 
proceed  from  a  recognition  not  only  of  its 
nature,  as  poetry,  philosophy,  narrative  and 
the  like,  but,  if  it  be  history,  of  the  class  for 
whom  it  is  written,  the  end  in  view,  and 
therefore  the  method  adopted.  To  deal  fairly 
with  the  Creation-narrative  such  consideration 
is  absolutely  indispensable.  I  address  my- 
self therefore  first  to  these  questions.  What 
then  is  the  nature  of  the  composition  ? 

Now,  then,  it  is  idle  to  designate  this  sim- 
ple record  as  anything  else  than  a  narrative. 
To  call  it  a  parable  as  some  have  done,  or  a 
psalm  of  Creation  with  others,  is  doing  vio- 
lence to  the  most  obvious  facts.  There  are 
psalms  of  Creation,  pi-e-eniinently  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fourtli  psalm,  which,  as  Von   Hum- 


4  HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

boldt '  has  well  said,  represents  "  the  image 
of  the  Cosmos,"  sketching  with  a  few  bold 
touches  the  whole  universe,  the  heavens  and 
the  earth.  That  is  manifestly  poetry.  But  if 
any  records  in  the  Old  Testament  read  like 
plain  veritable  history,  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  surely  is  one  of  them.  Nothing  could 
be  more  sober,  simple,  matter-of-fact. 

But  for  whom  was  it  written  ?  For  no  one 
class,  but  for  all  classes,  ages,  races,  condi- 
tions,— for  mankind.  This  fact  carries  con- 
sequences. 

With  what  aim  was  it  written  ?  Clearly, 
not  for  its  own  separate  value,  but  as  a  need- 
ful brief  introduction  to  the  revelation  of  God 
for  man's  redemption, — a  preliminary  explana- 
tion. Again,  not  chiefly  for  his  intellectual 
education,  but  for  his  moral  enligiitenment 
and  religious  impression;  not  for  complete- 
ness of  science,  but  for  the  uses  of  duty  and 
piety.     This  too  carries  consequences. 

These  and  other  considerations  fix  our  at- 
tention on  the  method  of  the  narrative — a 
matter  of  vital  importance  for  its  right  inter- 
pretation. A  failure  to  recognize  distinctly 
the  writer's  method  is  wholly  to  lose  the  clue 
to  any  right  apprehension  or  even  fair  treat- 
ment of  the  record. 

'  Humboldt's  "Cosmos,"  ii.  pp.  58-9  (Am.  Trans.) 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  5 

(1.)  The  first  fact  of  method  that  we  are 
bound  to  consider,  is  its  singular,  I  might 
well  say,  its  amazing  brevity.  The  narrative 
is  here  foreshortened  to  an  unparalleled  de- 
gree. Some  thirty  short  verses  are  made  to 
contain  the  whole  formation  of  this  universe, 
from  its  inception  to  its  completion.  Now 
casting  aside  all  the  wilder  claims  sometimes 
made  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  millions 
of  years  ^  since  life  began,  and  taking  the 
more  moderate  estimate  of  Sir  William  Thom- 
son, some  years  ago,  of  from  seventy  to  one 
hundred  millions  of  years,'  or  the  later  and 
much  more  moderate  estimate  of  Tait*  which 
gives  from  ten  to  fifteen  millions  as  the  past 
limit  of  the  present  order  of  things — the  time 
since  tbe  globe  became  fitted  for  the  exist- 
ence of  life — or  the  later  estimate  of  Professor 
C.  A.  Young "^  which  assigns  eighteen  millions 

2  Thus  Haeckel:  "The  organic  history  of  the  earth  must 
not  be  calculated  by  thousands  of  years,  but  by  palaeon- 
tological  or  geological  periods,  tach  of  which  comprises 
many  thousands  of  years  and  perhaps  even  millions  or 
milliards  of  thousands  of  years."  "It  is  most  advisable 
from'a  philosophical  point  of  view  to  conceive  this  period 
of  creation  to  be  as  long  as  possible  "  ( "  History  of  Crea- 
tion," ii.  p.  337). 

3  Geike  in  his  "  Geology  "  (London,  1S82,  p.  55,)  still  fa- 
vors "not  much  less  than  a  hundred  million  years." 

■•  "  Recent  Advances  of  Physical  Science,"  p.  167. 
6  "The  Sun,"  p.  277. 


6  HISl'ORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

of  years  as  the  longest  limit  of  the  past  dura- 
tion of  the  solar  system,  we  should  have  on 
the  highest  estimate,  an  average  of  from  three 
to  five  millions  of  years,  and  on  the  lowest 
estimate,  of  half  a  million  of  years,  to  a  verse. 
AVhat  an  unexampled  compression  !  Suppose 
a  writer  were  required  distinctly  and  vividly 
to  set  fortii  the  history  of  the  world  for  six 
thousand  years,  or  of  Europe  for  nineteen 
hundred,  or  of  America  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty,  in  the  compass  of  thirty  sentences,  what 
would  be  the  result?  1  can  think  of  nothing 
whereby  to  illustrate  the  process  so  effectu- 
ally as  an  attempt  to  draw  a  map  of  North 
America  in  the  space  of  a  square  inch.  Con- 
sider how^  details  must  disappear;  rivers, 
mountains  and  lakes  of  great  magnitude  are 
wholly  lost;  the  manifold  indentations  of  the 
coast  give  way  to  straight  or  slightly  bent 
lines;  and  a  few  brief  strokes  of  the  pencil 
take  the  place  of  an  indefinite  amount  and 
variety  of  configurations.  It  is  but  an  out- 
line sketch, — correct  but  necessarily  incom- 
plete. Now  in  like  manner  the  exceeding- 
brevity  of  this  narrative  necessitates  (a)  the 
omission  and  disregard  of  details.  It  is  and 
can  be  but  a  graphic  outline  sketch,  drawn 
with  bold  characterizing  strokes,  overlooking 
all  minor  particulars,  even  all  modifying  qual- 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  7 

ifications  and  minute  exceptions.  This  fact 
at  once  obviates  the  necessity  and  propriety 
of  dealing  with  and  looking  for  any  but  the 
great  characterizing  features.  If,  for  exam- 
ple, some  lower  (marsupial)^  form  of  mammal 
life  anticipated  the  great  outburst  of  mam- 
mals upon  the  earth  we  can  no  more  expect 
that  the  narrative  should  specify  it  than  that 
our  square-inch  map  should  recognize  Curri- 
tuck Inlet  or  Cape  Ann.  The  only  expansion 
it  admits  is  the  rhetorical  fulness  of  expres- 
sion which  shall  make  clear,  impressive  and 
vivid  its  sweeping  outline  statements. 

This  brevity  carries  another  feature,  viz.,  (/>) 
a  continuous  forward  movement  and  final  dis- 
missal of  facts  once  narrated  in  their  order. 
This  is  a  feature  of  the  narrative  most  im- 
portant to  be  recognized.  It  passes  steadily 
on  from  stage  to  stage,  with  the  successive 
steps,  or  rather  germs  of  progress.  It  marks 
the  initiation  of  one  stage  of  the  ci-eation,  then 
proceeds  to  another,  but  never  afterwards  re- 
sumes its  account  of  the  former  though  it 
may  have  been  a  long-continued  process,  not 
intermitted  even  when  another  supervenes. 
The  narrative  describes  each  new  movement 
in   succession,  and  then  dismisses  it  finally. 

6  e.  {/.,  The  Microlestes  and  Dromatherium,  marsuj^ials 
and  tlioreibre  semivivipai-ous,  in  the  Trias. 


8  HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

And  from  this  fact  follows  another  noticeable 
and  important  feature  of  the  narrative,  viz., 
(c)  that  the  announcement  and  dismissal  of 
a  given  set  of  phenomena, — any  distinct  branch 
of  the  creative  work, — seeing  that  it  is  not  to 
be  resumed  and  further  narrated  in  the  sequel, 
is  summed  up  and  described  as  a  whole,  in  its 
completeness.  It  is  the  briefest  possible  method 
of  dispatching  the  subject.  This  fact  meets 
us  unmistakably  in  regard  to  the  formation 
of  the  continents  and  the  vegetable  system, 
in  regard  to  the  introduction  of  all  the  varioiis 
forms  of  life,  and  even,  as  we  have  reason  to 
believe,  in  reference  to  the  functions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies, — each  of  which  processes 
was  the  work  of  long  ages. 

This  singular  condensation,  with  its  three 
subordinate  points,  of  grand  characterization 
with  omission  of  details,  steady  forward  move- 
ment without  recapitulation,  and  the  summing 
up  and  dismissal  of  each  branch  of  the  process, 
announced  in  its  totality  and  completeness, 
removes  nearly  all  the  real  and  serious  diffi- 
culties of  the  narration.  Other  less  serious, 
though  more  obvious  occasions  of  question- 
ing are  met  by  considering, 

(2.)  Another  governing  quality  of  method, 
viz.,  its  design  to  be  intelligible  to  the  hu 
man  race.     This  purpose  carries  by  necessity 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  9 

certain  qnalities  which  require  only  to  be 
mentioned,  to  be  recognized:  (a)  the  narra- 
tive is,  as  a  description,  thoroughly  popular 
and  not  in  the  slightest  degree  scientific.  It 
sets  forth  obvious  and  recognizable  results, 
and  makes  no  attempt  at  a  scientific  account 
of  the  processes.  A  statement  of  the  scien- 
tific aspects  of  the  case,  had  it  been  revealed 
to  the  narrator,  would  have  found,  for  more 
than  three  thousand  years,  not  only  no  per- 
son capable  of  comprehending,  but  none  cap- 
able of  receiving  it.  Such  a  narrative  would 
have  been,  down  to  the  present  century,  a 
hopeless  stumbling-block  at  the  threshold  of 
the  sacred  word.  But  the  sacred  history  avoids 
everything  that  is  scientific,  and  is,  as  was  in- 
dispensable, completely  popular  in  its  method. 
And  one  very  noticeable  aspect  of  the  narra- 
tive viewed  in  this  light  is  that,  instead  of 
fixing  the  attention  upon  the  process,  it  de- 
scribes quite  commonly  by  the  residt, — that  re- 
sult being  often  simple  enough  of  recognition  as 
a  mere  outward  siyn^  but  marking  changes  the 
most  immense  and  stupendous, — such  changes 
as  must  have  preceded  the  appearance  of  a 
visible  welkin,  or  the  disclosure  of  sun,  moon 
and  stars,  {h)  Another  kindred  feature  is 
the  necessary  absence  of  everything  like  a 
technical   term.     The   Hebrew  language,   in- 


10         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

deed,  offered  no  such  mechanism  of  speech. 
If  the  case  had  been  otherwise,  it  would  have 
been  wholly  alien  from  the  writer's  aim  and 
method.  The  narrative  throughout  is  clothed 
with  all  the  drapery  and  attractiveness  of  the 
language  and  scenery  of  human  life  and  ac- 
tion. We  have  no  universe,  to  itdv  or  ra 
Ttdvra,  but  "the  heavens  and  the  earth";  no 
mammals,  but  "cattle  and  creeping  thing  and 
beastof  the  earth";  no  atmosphere  (as  Gaussen' 
would  find  in  the  "firmament"),  but  simply 
*' heaven,"  or  the  visible  sky;  no  chaos,  but 
"emptiness  and  desolation"  (Hebrew);  no 
cosmic  gas,  nor  chemical  elements  uncon- 
densed  and  uncombined,  but  "the  deep";  no 
molecular  action,  but  the  "  brooding  "  of  God's 
spii'it.  When  the  grains  and  the  fruit-trees 
are  described  as  bearing  "after  their  kind" 
it  is  therefore  simply  characterizing  by  the 
most  obvious  marks,  and  no  assertion,  as  some 
unwisely  claim,  of  any  recondite  doctrine  of 
immutability  of  species.  Nor  can  we  fairly 
find,  even  with  the  eminent  Benjamin  Pierce, 
the  "light"  put  as  a  representative  of  "the 
forces  of  Nature  " — a  scientific  conception.  It 
stands  simply  for  itself, — light.  God  himself, 
instead  of  putting  forth  volitions,  "saj's,"  as 
though  audibly  speaking,  "let  there  be  light"; 
7  Gaussen,  "The  World's  Birth  Day,"  pp.  93  seq. 


THE    EARLIEST   COSMOGONY.  11 

he  gives  names  to  the  objects;  he  communes 
with  himself;  he  contemplates  the  results  with 
satisfaction,  pronouncing  them  "good,"  "very 
good."  It  is  all  part  of  the  graphic,  un tech- 
nical, human  method,  which  should  meet  the 
apprehension  and  arrest  the  attention  of  anj'^ 
and  every  member  of  the  human  race.  And 
it  is  strictly  in  keeping  with  this  same  method, 
that  the  several  stages  of  the  creative  process 
are  represented  under  the  vivid  aspect  of  so 
many  successive  day's  works  of  the  Creator, 
— which,  as  Bunsen  suggests,  *  is  the  simplest 
mode  of  viewing  the  whole  matter.  And  thus 
instead  of  geological  epoch  or  era,  for  which 
the  Hebrew  language  offered  no  phraseology 
and  the  human  mind  for  many  thousand  years 
no  receptivity,  we  have  God's  "day,"  the  vast 
extent  of  which  the  i-esearches  of  future  ages 
alone  should  unfold.  But  of  this  more  in  the 
sequel,  (c).  Another  obvious  as  well  as  need- 
ful aspect  of  this  method,  is  that  it  is  purel}^ 
a  iihenomenal  description.  All  is  represented 
as  it  appeared,  or  would  have  appeared,  to 
the  eye  of  the  beholder.  And  this  fact  has 
even  suggested  to  Godet,  Kurtz,  Miller  and 
others,  the  idea  of  an  original  revelation  in 
vision,  by  a  series  of  what  might  be  called 
ilioramic  representations  passing  before  the 
8  "Bibelwerk,"  Geu.  i.  5. 


12         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

mental  eye,  opened  and  closed  by  its  succes- 
sion of  darkness  and  light.  Such  a  supposi- 
tion, though  not  an  impossible  one,  and  though 
in  some  respects  facilitating  the  explanation, 
is  by  no  means  necessary.  It  is  enough  to 
recognize  the  unmistakable  fact  that  the  de- 
scription is  phenomenal — not  necessarily  vis- 
ional, but  chiefly  visual  or  optical.  This  fea- 
ture appears  beyond  question  in  the  case  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  described  not  as  they 
are,  the  sun  a  luminary,  the  moon  a  reflect- 
ing satellite,  but  as  they  appear  in  the  hea- 
vens, the  one  to  rule  the  day,  the  other  the 
night.  This  indeed  may  be  emphasized  as  a 
test  case  in  regard  to  the  character  of  the 
whole  narrative.  But  the  same  characteristic 
appears  more  or  less  clearly  in  all  the  other 
parts  of  the  history — the  visible  heaven  di- 
viding waters  from  waters,  the  obvious  dis- 
tinctions of  the  forms  of  vegetation,  the 
"stretched  out"  creatures,  the  winged  crea- 
tures flying  "on  the  face'"  (Hebrew)  of  the 
expanse  of  heaven,  and  "  everything  that 
creepeth  upon  the  earth," — for  so  they  look 
upon  the  great  globe — all  of  it  phenomenal 
and  even  pictorial. 

All  these  qualities  of  method  grow  so  nat- 
urally out  of  the  aim  of  the  narrator,  and  lie 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  13 

SO  manifestly  on  the  face  of  the  narrative, 
that  when  once  clearly  stated,  they  cannot 
fail  to  be  recognized  as  alike  true  and  impor- 
tant. But  the  actual  non-recognition  of  them 
has  been  the  constant  stumbling-block.  No 
intelligent  apprehension  and  no  fair  and  can- 
did treatment  of  the  narrative  can  overlook 
their  bearing.  We  might  as  well  ignore  the 
dramatic  character  of  Job  or  the  figurative 
phraseology  of  the  Biblical  poetry.  This  is 
narrative,  history, — but  narrative  written  in 
a  thoroughly  popular  style  and  method,  in  or- 
der to  reach  all  men.  I  lay  all  emphasis  on 
these  several  principles,  because  in  them  lies 
the  clue  to  the  whole  narrative ;  and  its  proper 
interpretation  comes  from  their  application. 

Applying  now  these  true  and  simple  princi- 
ples to  the  narrative,  how  readily  we  bring 
out  in  this  record,  made  in  the  comparative 
infancy  of  the  world,  the  sharp  bold  outline 
sketch,  of  which  the  world  in  its  supposed 
maturity  has  only  within  a  century  been  able 
to  supply  the  multitudinous  and  often  con- 
fused details,  and  by  laying  them  beside  that 
original  sketch,  so  clear  that  all  the  world  has 
understood  it  in  every  essential  feature,  find 
that  there  lay  the  true  germ  and  outline  of 
the  whole.  The  chief  liability  to  iiiadequate 
conception  was  on  the  one  point  of  the  lapse 


14         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

of  time, — a  point  on  which  all  conception  is 
inadequate,  and  on  which  it  would  have  been 
not  only  needless,  but  worse  than  useless,  to 
attempt  conveying  an  approximate  impression 
in  advance  of  the  slow  gropings  and  discov- 
eries of  investigation.  Yet  even  here  the  ac- 
count is  not  destitute  of  clear  hints  by  which 
bright  minds  like  Augustine's  long  ago  pro- 
fited, to  see  that  the  "  day  "  of  God's  working 
was  of  unknown  duration,  and  might  be  to 
man's  day  somewhat  in  the  ratio  of  God  to 
man.^ 

Shall  I  now  rapidl}^  unfold  this  sketch  of 
creation  in  the  double  light  of  its  own  obvious 
plan  of  description,  and  the  latest  results  of 
investigation. 

"The  beginning"  was  evidently  prior  to 
all  existences  in  this  universe  of  ours,  except 
that  of  God  the  Creator.  The  "heavens  and 
the  earth "  are  clearly  the  visible  universe. 
"Creation"  in  the  first  verse  cannot  well  be 
understood  of  anything  short  of  absolute  or- 
igination, not  alone  or  chiefly  (1)  because  the 

9  Says  Augustine :  ' '  What  kind  of  days  they  are  is  either 
very  difficult  or  quite  impossible  for  us  to  think,  much 
more  to  express.  For  we  see  that  the  days  we  know  have 
their  evening  only  by  the  setting  of  the  sun,  and  their 
morning  by  its  rising.  But  the  first  three  were  spent  with- 
out the  sun,  which  is  related  to  have  been  made  on  the 
fourth"  {^'■'■Civiiaie  Dei,"  xi.  6,  7). 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  15 

Hebrew  X^|  is  the  proper  word  to  express 
such  a  thought,  even  more  specific  than  the 
English  "  create,"  being  used  forty-eight  times 
in  the  Kal  conjugation  and  always  having  God 
for  its  subject,  never  accompanied  with  an  ac- 
cusative of  material,  and  being  employed  to 
describe  the  Divine  production,  in  the  king- 
dom of  nature  or  of  grace,  of  what  had  no  exist- 
ence before,  nor  even  alone  (2)  because  such 
is  apparently  the  exposition  given  in  Heb.  xi. 
3;  but  necessarily  (3)  by  the  exigencies  of  the 
narrative — inasmuch  as  every  plastic  process 
is  subsequently  described,  and  so  exhaustively 
as  to  leave  nothing  for  the  "  creation  "  except 
origination  of  the  material.  If  it  be  said  that 
the  absolute  origination  of  matter  passes  all 
comprehension  and  conception,  we  repl}^,  of 
course,  so  do  all  things  ultimate;  and  it  is,  so 
to  speak,  less  incomprehensible  that  an  al- 
mighty power  could  originate  it,  than  that  an 
inert  material  could  have  been  self-existent, 
self-originated,  or  etei-nal. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  second 
verse  cuts  clear  of  the  universe  at  large,  or 
even  of  the  solar  system,  and  confines  itself  to 
"  the  earth."  This  fact  would  seem  to  pre- 
clude the  view  advanced  by  so  high  scientific 
authorities  as  Guyot  and  Dana,  that  in  a  sub- 
sequent verse  the  dividing  of  the  waters  from 


16         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH 

the  waters  was  the  separation  of  the  earth 
from  the  nebula  of  which  it  was  a  part,  and 
forces  us  to  a  simpler  and  narrower  explana- 
tion. "  The  earth  " — to  which  our  attention 
is  now  confined — was  after  its  creation  "with- 
out form  and  void,"  literally  "  wasteness  and 
emptiness,"  in  other  words  a  chaotic  mass, 
described  by  two  archaic  Hebrew  words, 
"inhi  ^nri,  and  in  the  next  breath  designated 
as  "  the  deep  ";  perhaps  because  no  other  than 
this  last  terra  could  so  vividly  describe  the 
vast,  confused,  unstable  and,  it  may  be,  heav- 
ing and  roaring  mass  of  matei'ial  in  its  earlier 
stages,  as  the  vast  ocean  abyss.  For  "  the 
spirit  of  God"  at  length  "moved"  or  rather 
brooded  upon  it,  began  a  steady  and  long 
continued  agency, — there  being  no  necessity 
of  limiting  this  process  to  the  initial  stage, 
inasmuch  as  the  word  "  brood "  hints  other- 
wise. And  in  this  "  brooding,"  the  chaos  deep 
is  now  described  as  "the  waters,"  a  phrase 
which  both  retains  the  figure  of  the  ocean  and 
may  suggest  the  mobile,  not  to  say  fluid,  con- 
dition of  the  material,  which  scientists  affirm 
to  have  been  once  gaseous  or  nebulous.  There 
was  a  stage  when  all  was  darkness ;  then  came 
the  creation  of  light,  "offspring  of  heaven  first 
born."  Nothing  would  help  us  to  explain  the 
whole  transaction  recorded  in  a  single  verse 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  17 

(3rd)  so  well  as  the  acceptance  not  alone  of 
the  nebular  theory — though  not  cleared  of  all 
objections,  e.  ^.,  the  lack  of  certain  elements 
ill  the  sun  which  are  prominent  in  the  earth, 
— but  even  of  the  plausible  speculations  of 
Lockyer,  viz.,  that  "the  chemical  elements 
tliemselves  are  one  kind  of  matter  under 
differently  aggregated  forms,  at  first  dif- 
fused through  the  universe;  that  atom  co- 
alesced with  atom,  singly  or  in  groups,  and 
that  the  most  primitive  of  our  elements,  such 
as  hydrogen,  were  formed.  Further  and  fur- 
ther aggregations  took  place,  the  equally  dif- 
fused matter  became  more  and  more  con- 
densed, in  certain  parts  forming  distinct 
nebulae,  which  went  on  shrinking  more  and 
more,  and  increasing  in  density  as  they  di- 
minished in  size,  until,  to  take  a  single  in- 
stance, the  matter  which  uniformly  filled  a 
space  much  greater  than  the  entire  solar 
system,  became  condensed  into  the  bodies 
of  the  sun  and  planets,  leaving  between  them 
only  that  thin  impalpable  substance  to  which 
we  give  the  name  of  ether.  The  shock  of 
the  atoms  as  they  struck  against  each  other, 
not  only  gave  them  a  motion  of  revolution, 
but  raised  them  to  a  temperature  of  which 
we  have  scarcely  any  conception,  and  which 
rendered    the    existence    not    only    of    com- 


18         HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

pounds,  but  of  many  of  the  actual  metals 
themselves,  impossible."  ^^  This  would  help 
us,  if  we  might  accept  it,  though  it  is  not 
indispensable. 

Fixing  now  the  attention  on  the  supposed 
stage  of  the  process  when  the  great  chemical 
combination  and  condensation  began  in  good 
earnest,  accompanied  by  an  intense  and  in- 
conceivable heat — when  the  material  of  our 
earth  suddenly  shrank  from  what  Dawson 
suggests"  as  two  thousand  times  its  present 
diameter  towai'ds  some  approximation  to  its 
present  dimensions — and  you  have  now  that 
intense  molecular  activity  which,  as  Professor 
Dana  remarks,  "  would  show  itself  instantly  by 
a  manifestation  of  light,"  and  "a  flash  of  light 
through  the  universe  would  be  the  first  an- 
nouncement of  the  work  begun." 

But  observe  that  the  statement,  "  there  was 
light,"  gives  a  fact  that  is  not  so  much  signi- 
ficant for  itself  as  in  its  being  the  sign,  the  re- 
markable sign,  of  the  most  enormous  changes 
not  otherwise  set  forth.  This,  it  will  be  ob- 
served again,  is  characteristic  of  the  whole 
narrative.  The  existence  of  light  before  the 
manifestation  of  the  sun,  and  independent  of 
it,  was  the  stumbling-block  of  Voltaire  a  cen- 

10  Brunton's  "Science  and  the  Bible,"  p.  340-1. 
>i  "  Story  of  the  Earth  and  Man,"  p.  9. 


THE   EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  19 

tury  since,  and  of  an  English  churchman'^  but 
twenty  years  ago,  but  offers  no  difficulty  to  a 
well  taught  school-boy.  This  sudden  breaking 
in  of  light  upon  the  scene  of  long  preceding- 
darkness,  like  an  evening  followed  by  a  morn- 
ing, falls  in  with,  perhaps  gives  rise  to,  the 
imagery  of  a  divine  day's  work,  thenceforward 
maintained  through  the  narrative, — although 
afterwards  the  terms  morning  and  evening 
are  perhaps  generalized  to  denote  the  begin- 
ning and  ending  of  a  formative  period,  or 
(Lange)  "the  interval  of  a  creative  day." 
That  this  word  "  day  "  does  not  signify  a  solar 
day  we  are  warned  by  the  fact  stated  in  the 
narrative,  that  the  solar  day  was  not  yet  pro- 
vided for,  a  fact  which  long  ago  intimated  to 
such  minds  as  Augustine's  and  Bede's  "  that 
a  solar  day  was  not  intended.  When  the 
narrative  ascribes  the  formation  of  the  oceans 
and  continents  to  a  part  of  one  day,  it  therein 
describes  a  fact  which  by  the  laws  of  hydro- 
statics could  not  completely  take  place  in  any 

'•■*C.  A.  Goodwin,  Oxford,  "  Essays  and  Reviews, "  p.  246. 

's  Says  Bede  (Comment,  in  Pentateuchum,  Vol.  ii.  p.  194, 
Migne),  "  '  Unus  dies.'  Fortassis  hie  diei  nomen  totius 
temporis  nomen  est,  et  omnia  volamina  sreciilorum  hoc 
vocabulo  includit."  In  his  Hesaemeron  (i.  D. )  he  speaks 
however  as  though  the  day  were  of  twenty-four  hours  ac- 
complished by  the  going  and  coming  of  the  light,  as  now 
of  the  sun. 


20         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

part  of  a  solar  day.  When  it  employs  this 
word  "  day  "  with  four,  if  not  five  different  ap- 
plications, in  this  one  narrative  (vs.  5,  14,  ii. 
4),  it  thereby  warns  against  the  possibility  of 
confining  it  to  this  one  narrow  meaning.^^ 
When  it  mentions  God's  "day"  of  rest  from 
creating,  it  mentions  a  day  which  has  con- 
tinued now  for  many  thousand  years,  and 
constrains  us  by  the  rules  of  consistency  to 
recognize  also  his  creative  days  as  protracted 
periods.  The  Biblical  idiom  and  the  popular 
speech  of  man  alike  justify  an  indefinite  ex- 
tension of  the  terms,'^  such  as  the  discoveries 
of  science  compel.  If  it  be  said  that  the  clos- 
ing consecration  of  the  seventh  day  proves 
that  we  are  dealing  only  with  a  solar  day,  we 
answer,  the  consecration  of  our  seventh  day 
does  not  necessarily  identify  the  actual  length 
of  God's  and  man's  day  of  rest,  but  only  the 
■ratio  in  the  two  cases ;  as  God's  resting  day  to 
his  working  days,  so  is  man's  resting  day  to 
his  working  days,  the  seventh  to  each  of  the 
six.     The  whole   series   of  events  was  on   a 

'•*  In  verse  fifth  it  designates  the  total  succession  of  light 
and  darkness  when  there  was  no  sun,  and  also  the  light 
portion  of  that  period;  in  verse  fourteenth,  the  solar  daj', 
and  also  the  light  portion  of  that  day;  in  ch.  ii.  4,  appar- 
ently, the  whole  time  of  the  creation. 

'*  Day  of  salvation,  visitation,  prosperity,  adversity;  his 
day,  my  day,  etc. 


THE    EARLIEST   COSMOGONY.  21 

colossal  scale  to  which  all  terms  of  actual 
measurement  are  alike  inadequate.  And  in 
treating  this  topic  I  prefer  saying  that  the 
wliole  process  is  represented  under  the  figure  of 
a  series  of  day's  works,  rather  than  to  insist 
solely  on  a  flexible  use  of  the  word  "day  " — 
though  the  latter  is  a  tenable  position." 

It  may  be  added  that  the  whole  aim  and  in- 
struction of  the  narrative  were  subserved  just 
as  well  by  leaving  for  the  future  unfoldings 
of  exploration,  the  incomprehensible,  and,  till 
recently,  incredible  length  of  these  periods  of 
creation.  The  attempted  disclosure  would 
even  have  marred  the  influence  and  the  use- 
fulness of  the  narrative. 

We  can  proceed  more  rapidly.  The  sec- 
ond day  is  marked  by  the  "firmament" 
—  the  expanse  —  explained  in  the  record 
as  being  called  heaven.  The  visible  sky, 
the  blue  welkin,  is  here  designated, — not 
(with  Gaussen)  the  atmosphere, — which 
would  be  too  scientific.  And  the  waters 
below   are    the    ocean,    now   at    length    able 

16  Thus,  though  the  case  is  not  fully  parallel,  I  would 
say  that  the  parable  of  the  unjust  judge  sets  forth  God's 
accessibleness  to  importunate  prayer;  but  here,  plainly, 
we  cannot  properly  say  that  God  is  represented  as  an  un- 
just judge. 

On  the  ratio  of  God's  days  and  man's,  see  Reusch, 
"Bibel  und  Natur,"  p.  128.     Bonn,  1876. 


22         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

to  lie  on  the  cooler  crust  of  the  earth, 
while  the  waters  above,  the  clouds,  are  seen 
floating,  separated  by  the  visible  expanse.  For 
the  V^\>~1  is  not  the  firmamentum  of  the  Vulgate 
(something  hammered  solid,)  but  something 
hammered  out  thin,  spread  out,  an  expanse. 
But  observe  that  this  visible  sky,  with  the 
waters  lying  beneath  and  floating  aloft,  is,  like 
the  "  light "  of  the  previous  day,  but  the  rec- 
ognizable and  obvious  sign  of  untold,  enor- 
mous changes  which  have  meanwhile  gone 
forward.  There  has  been  an  amazing  con- 
densation and  combination  of  elements,  in- 
conceivable heat  and  incandescence  of  a 
gaseous  and  molten  mass,  a  long  cooling  off*' 
till  at  length  the  surface  is  lower  than  the  tem- 
perature 212  degrees,  and  the  disengagement 
of  a  surrounding  atmosphere,  widely  different 
from  that  of  to-day,  yet  such  that  while  a  uni- 
versal ocean  swathes  the  earth  (as  science  also 
affirms),  dense  vapors  are  borne  aloft.  All  this 
vast  history,  as  we  now  know,  is  indicated,  or 
covered  up  by  the  simple  mention  of  this  vis- 
ible sign,  a  sky  with  waters  above  and  below 
it;  just  as  we  answer  the  question,  how  cold  is 

"  Dana  mentions  that  Helmholtz  demands  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  of  years  for  the  cooling  from  2000 
degrees  to  200  degrees  Fahrenheit.  "Geology,"  p.  147. 
The  statement  is  given  as  a  curiosity.  "The  estimate  of 
another  author,"  says  Dana  "is  four  times  this." 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  23 

the  day,  by  giving  the  visible  sign, — the  mercu- 
ry stands  at  — 20  degrees.  Such  is  the  method. 
The  next  stage  of  progress,  the  third  day, 
is  indicated  by  two  grand  strokes  of  the  pen- 
cil or  pen.  First  the  formation  of  the  conti- 
nents, accompanied  by  the  withdrawal  of  the 
ocean  to  its  bed;  a  process  now  well  known  to 
have  preceded  all  further  development.  The 
cooling  earth  wrinkled  its  huge  folds  and 
reared  the  oldest  mountain  chains.  Here  ob- 
serve the  method.  This  new  order  of  things 
— the  change — is  stated  once  for  all,  and,  with 
this  brief  announcement,  dismissed;  although 
the  process  continued  through  succeeding  ages 
usually  reckoned  as  millions  of  years.  The 
first  continents  were,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, meagre  strips  of  land.  In  North  America 
the  chief  original  nucleus,  the  oldest  known 
rocks,  ("  not  the  absolute  oldest,"  Le  Conte) 
lay  in  the  British  Provinces,  with  the  outlying 
Adirondacks,  part  of  the  Appalachian  line,  isl- 
ands in  New  England,  patches  in  Nova  Sco- 
tia and  New  Brunswick,  a  Pacific  coast  range 
ill  Mexico,  and  various  detached  areas  in  the 
Mississippi  basin  west,  as  the  Black  Hills  of 
Dakota.  The  European  Continent  was  chiefly 
an  archipelago  as  late  as  the  Devonian  era 
(Dana).  But  since  their  first  emergence  the 
continents  have  been  enlarging  and  the  mouu- 


24         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

tains  rising — the  Rocky  mountains  not  less 
than  eleven  thousand  feet  in  the  Tertiary  age ; 
and  the  period  of"  comparative  rest  seems  not 
to  have  been  reached  till  since  the  great  glacial 
epoch.  But  the  narrative  has  done  with  it  in 
the  first  and  final  announcement." 

The  other  event  of  this  third  day  was  the  in- 
troduction of  vegetable  life.  The  fragile  na- 
ture of  plants,  and  especially  of  the  earliest, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  vast  vicissitudes 
since  those  remotest  eras,  is  a  good  reason 
why  they  are  not  found  in  proper  form  so  far 
back  as  the  narrative  requires.  But  the  sci- 
entific probability,  if  not  certainty,  of  their 
existence  antecedent,  as  a  whole,  to  that  of 
animal  life,  appears  from  the  facts  (1)  that  "  a 

'8  Thus,  Le  Conte  affirms  that  the  end  of  the  Cretaceous 
was  "pre-eminently  a  time  of  continent-making,"  there 
occurring  at  that  time  "  a  bodily  upheaval  of  the  whole 
western  half  of  the  [American]  continent,  by  which  the 
great  interior  sea  which  previously  divided  America  into 
two  continents  was  abolished,  and  the  continent  became 
one."  So  also  "the  end  of  the  Jurassic  had  been  pre- 
eminently a  time  of  mountain-making"  ("Geology,"  p. 
475).  Dana  carries  out  this  last  point  in  detail  ("Geoh" 
p.  754)  by  estimating  (on  the  basis  of  forty-eight  millions 
of  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  Silurian  period  to  the 
present)  that  the  interval  from  the  beginning  of  the  Pri- 
mordial "to  the  uplifts  and  metamorphism  of  the  Green 
mountains  was  20,000,000  years  and  to  the  completion  of 
the  AUeghanies  36,000,000." 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  25 

temperature  admitting  of  the  existence  of  veg- 
etation would  have  been  reached,  in  the  pro- 
cess of  refrigeration,  before  that  of  animal  life :'' 
(2)  that  animals  require  plants  for  food,  find- 
ing no  nutriment  in  inorganic  matter;  (3)  and 
still  more  positively  from  the  immense  amount 
of  graphite  with  its  carbon  and  of  iron  ore  far 
down  in  the  Laurentian  rocks,  (and  in  Europe 
anthracite,)  implying  former  vegetable  life/^ 
So  say  the  geologists.  As  the  earliest  vege- 
tables appear  to  have  been  sea-weeds,  their 
relics  could  not  be  expected  in  any  more  de- 
fined condition. 

Here  we  meet  one  of  the  few,  at  first  sight, 
serious  difficulties.  The  writer  describes  the 
whole  vegetable  world,  including  "  the  herb 
yielding  seed  and  the  fruit  tree  yielding  fruit." 
But  we  find  by  exploration  that  these  belong 
mostly  to  a  very  late  period  of  the  geological 
history,  some  of  them  not  long  antedating  the 
human  race.  How  is  this?  The  answer  is 
very  simple.  Just  as  m  the  case  of  the  con- 
tinents, and  later  in  regard  to  the  forms  of 
animal  life,  the  writer  despatches  the  whole 

■9  Dana,  "Geology,"  p.  157.  Le  Conte,  "Geology,"  p. 
274.  Geike,  "Geology,"  p.  639.  Geike  says,  "Dr.  Steriy 
Hant  has  called  attention  to  these  [iron]  ores  as  proving 
the  precipitation  of  iron  by  decomposing  vegetation  on  a 
more  gigantic  scale  than  at  any  subsequent  geological 
epoch." 


26         HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

subject  with  one  stroke.  Since  he  will  no:  re- 
cur to  the  fact,  he  describes  in  its  complete- 
ness that  of  which  he  now  narrates  the  in- 
ception, and  so  dismisses  it  finally.  This  is 
his  method. 

But  for  a  long  time  after  the  simpler  forms 
of  vegetation  were  possible,  the  geologist  has 
shown  us  that  the  atmosphere  and  the  earth's 
surface  were  in  a  very  different  condition  from 
their  present  state,  and  wholly  unfitted  for  the 
present  forms  of  animal  life.  Not  only  must 
the  higher  temperature  have  filled  the  air 
constantly  with  a  vast  amount  of  watery 
vapor,  wrapping  it  (to  use  the  figure  of 
Le  Conte,)  as  in  a  double  blanket,  and  mak- 
ing of  it  a  great  conservatory  or  forcing  hot- 
house, but  it  was  loaded  with  all  the  carbon 
that  is  now  embedded  in  the  coal  formation 
and  the  marble  and  limestone  rocks,  the  chlo 
rine  and  sulphurous  acids  of  the  various  chlo- 
rides and  sulphurets  and  sulphurs  of  the  earth's 
surface — "an  atmospiSere,"  says  Sterry  Hunt 
"charged  with  acid  gasses,  and  of  immense 
density."-" 

The  fourth  day's  work  is  characterized  by 
the  eventful  fact  that  at  length  the  light  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  found  its  way  through 
and  shone  upon  the  earth.     This  again  is  but 

20  Lecture  before  the  Boyal  Institution  of  London,  1867 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  27 

the  striking  sign  of  vast  intervening  but 
undescribed  changes,  that  had  taken  place 
on  the  earth's  surface  and  in  the  atmosphere. 
It  was  a  gradual  process,  for  which  it  is  not 
easy  to  assign  the  exact  and  definite  location 
in  order  of  time;  some  placing  it  (with  Miller, 
apparently)  after  the  Carboniferous,  others 
better  (with  Dawson)  after  the  Laurentian, 
itself  an  era  of  immense  duration."^  But 
evidently  it  must  have  preceded  any  except 
the  lowest  forms  of  animal  life;  and  hence 
the  place  it  occupies  in  the  narrative  conforms 
in  general  to  the  known  order  of  nature.  Their 
emergence  as  signs  marking  off  the  appointed 
seasons,  the  "days"  and  the  "years,"  was,  as 
has  been  said,  the  setting  up  of  the  great 
world's  clock,  which  has  not  varied  the 
hundred  thousandth  of  a  second,  some  have 
claimed,  in  2000  years. ^- 

But  we  hurry  on.     The  graphic  pen-stroke 
that  opens  the  fifth  day's  work  gives  us  the 

2'  "  It  is  probable  that  the  Archean  era  is  longer  thau 
all  the  rest  of  the  recorded  history  of  the  earth  put  to- 
gether" (Le  Conte,  "Geology,"  p.  274). 

2-'  Mr.  E.  A.  Proctor  however  says  that  "  the  resistance  of 
the  tidal  wave  acts  as  a  break  constantly  retarding  the 
earth's  turning  motion,  though  so  slowly  that  fifteen  hun- 
dred million  years  would  be  required  to  lengthen  the  ter- 
restrial day  by  one  full  hour"  ("The  Great  Pyramid," 
p.  209,  note). 


28        HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

waters  bringing  forth  abundantly, — "swarm- 
ing" with  living  creatures.  The  earliest  life 
was  a  long  marine  era,  and  the  geologist,  Le 
Conte,  unconsciously  echoes  the  very  words 
of  the  Scripture  when  he  says  that  the  "  early 
seas  literally  swarmed  with  living  beings," 
beginning  in  the  Cambriam, — and  that  10,074 
species  have  been  found  in  the  Silurian  rocks 
alone.  Sea  life  was  the  first  main  exhibition. 
And  a  mighty  exhibition  it  was.  For  follow- 
ing close  upon  these  Silurian  species,  and  in 
fact  beginning  there,  came  the  vast  outburst 
of  fishes  that  fill  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  or 
Devonian,  so  full. 

But  "the  winged  creature,"  says  the  narra- 
tive, was  to  fly  "over  the  face"  (Hebrew)  of 
heaven.  And  in  this  same  Devonian  series 
they  begin  with  the  ephemeris — Platephemera 
antiqua — of  five  inches  spread  of  wings,  and 
two  other  species  of  neuroptera,  expanding 
in  the  Carboniferous  into  a  dozen  other  known 
species,  one  with  a  seven  inch  spread,  and 
culminating  in  the  Jurassic  and  onward,  with 
those  many  kinds  of  monstrous  winged  crea- 
tures. Pterosaurs  or  flying  lizards — some  of 
them  extending  their  wings  twenty-five  feet 
from  tip  to  tip,  and  well-nigh  darkening  the 
face  of  the  sky — followed  at  length  or  accom- 
panied  by   the  true  bird  with  feathers — the 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  29 

archaeopteryx,  also   of  the  fTurassic,  and  by 
numerous  species  in  the  Cretaceous.  ^^ 

But  still  another  mark  of  this  wonderful  era 
were  the  great  monsters  of  sea  and  land — 
DJ''|ri — the  "  stretched  out "  creatures.  A  sin- 
gular description;  and  a  marvellous  fulfil- 
ment does  science  record.  Huge  reptiles  and 
amphibians,  in  vast  variety.  The  world  of- 
fers, at  the  present  time,  of  living  species,  not 
more  than  six  species  fifteen  feet  in  length, 
the  largest  of  them  not  longer  than  twenty- 
five  ;  but  then,  from  the  Carboniferous  through 
the  Cretaceous  periods,  not  less  than  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  known  species,  rang- 
ing from  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  fifty,  to  eighty 
feet  in  length,  and  one — the  titanosaur  of  the 
Jurassic — a  hundred  feet  in  length  and  at 
least  thirty  feet  in  height,  and  possibly  even 
this  excelled  by  the  cdlanfosaurus."*  How  the 
earth  must  have  groaned  with  the  tread  of 
these  huge  and  multitudinous  monsters,  while 
the  face  of  the  sky  was  shadowed  by  the 
screaming   pterosaurs,    and    the    waters    luid 

«  Sixteen  species  discovered  in  1871  and  1872  by  Marsh 
in  New  Jersey  and  Kansas,  two  of  them  of  gigantic  size. 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  1881,  adheres  to  the  belief  that 
"some  of  the  footsteps  on  the  [earlier]  Triassic  rocks  are 
those  of  birds."  "Inaugural  Address  to  the  British  As- 
sociation," Sept.  27,  18S1. 

^'J  Sir  J.  Lubbock,  "Inaugural  Address,"  Sept.  1881. 


30        HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

long  teemed  with  marine  life.  Could  three 
short,  bold  sketches  of  the  pen  more  admira- 
bly cliaracterize  the  grand  obvious  features 
of  the  ages  from  the  Cambrian  to  the  Eocene? 
And  now  the  sixth  day,  like  the  third,  has 
its  double  achievement.  First  came  "  the 
cattle,  beast  of  the  earth  and  creeping  thing  " 
— the  popular  description  of  the  domestic  ani- 
mals, the  larger  wild  beasts,  and  the  great 
indefinite  multitude  of  smaller  creatures,  pict- 
uresquely described  as  "creeping"  or  moving 
over  this  great  globe.  Why  need  I  dwell  on 
that  magnificent  fauna  which  followed  the 
abrupt  disappearance  of  the  great  reptiles 
and  amphibians  and  marked  the  period  of 
the  Eocene  and  onward,  as  the  well-known 
'■^  age  of  mammals."  It  would  be  a  thrice-told 
tale  to  enumerate  the  wonderful  exhibition 
of  the  ]\Ieiocene,  for  example,  beside  which 
the  whole  fauna  of  modern  India  "pales  in 
comparison";  for  there  we  find  seven  species 
of  elephants,  five  of  rhinoceros,  four  of  hippo- 
potamus, three  of  the  horse  tribe,  the  terrible 
deinotherium  and  their  associates, — although 
it  is  only  close  upon  the  time  of  man's  ap- 
pearing that  we  find  his  faithful  companions, 
the  sheep,  the  ox,  the  goat  and  the  dog.  The 
characterization  of  the  period  from  the  reptil- 
ian to  the  human  is  striking  and  admirable. 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  31 

And  at  the  close  ot"  all, — according  to  both 
the  records, — conies  man  himself,  and,  ac- 
cording to  both  alike,  he  came  to  "have  do- 
minion" over  the  beast  of  the  earth,  the  fish 
of  the  sea,  and  the  fowl  of  the  air.  In  other 
words,  from  his  first  discovered  and  rudest 
vestiges,  at  the  remotest  periods,  wherever 
we  meet  him,  he  is  a  man,  with  a  capacious 
skull  and  a  stalwart  form,  with  weapons  and 
implements,  the  hunter  of  the  reindeer,  mam- 
moth, musk-sheep  and  woolly  rhinoceros,  and 
elsewhere,  and  perhaps  later,  buried  in  his 
skin-robe  with  ornaments  of  shells  and  per- 
forated teeth,  with  his  red  war  paint,"'  and 
use  of  fire,  and,  while  living  side  by  side  with 
the  mammoth,  carving  on  a  plate  of  ivory 
the  likeness  of  his  huge  contemporary; — a 
man  with  all  the  essential  qualities  of  a  man, 
though  far  away  from  the  radiating  point  of 
the  race — and  no  doubt  degraded  by  the  far- 
off  wanderings. 

Now-,  in  glancing  back  over  these  two  rec- 
ords, in  the  book  and  in  the  rocks,  which  I 
have  thus  summarily  sketched,  one  may  well 

25  So  thinks  Dawson.  "Nature  and  the  Bible,"  p.  1G4. 
It  was  red  oxide  of  iron.  This  occupant  of  the  cave  oi 
Mentone  was  the  contemporary  of  the  cave-bear,  and  re- 
garded by  Lyell  as  "palaeolithic," — although  others  ex- 
press doubt,  chiefly,  it  would  seem,  because  of  the  progress 
indicated. 


32         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

ask  how  it  was  possible  with  a  few  grand 
pictorial  strokes  so  distinctly,  so  vividly  and 
so  intelligibly  through  all  time,  for  the  book 
to  have  delineated,  ages  ago,  in  consecutive 
order,  the  great  procession  of  Nature  from  her 
inception  to  her  consummation.  How  we  are 
constrained  to  come  at  length,  and  to  lay  be- 
side this  early  coherent  narrative  the  scattered 
discoveries  and  deductions  of  a  great  multitude 
of  acute  and  exploring  minds,  and  to  bring 
their  discoveries  and  deductions  into  coherence 
along  the  unbroken  line  of  the  ancient  outline 
sketch.  And  it  is  of  no  account  if  some  minor 
or  exceptional  detail  is  not  reported.  There 
18  no  room  nor  reason  for  such  things  in  our 
square-inch  map. 

See,  then,  the  sources  of  the  history  of  this 
universe  as  they  lie  in  a  continuous  series, 
confirmed  by  all  the  latest  research  in  at  least 
the  following  particulars: 

1.  Nature  and  its  parts  had  a  beginning. 
So,  certainly,  science  shows  of  all  the.  parts; 
and  in  regard  to  the  whole,  it  leads  us  up  step 
by  step  by  progressive  approach  and  points 
us  to  the  beginning  of  all.  "The  whole  course 
and  tendency  of  Nature  so  far  as  science  now 
makes  out,"  says  your  Professor  Young,  "points 
backward  to  a  beginning."  And  he  speaks  not 
only  for  such  men  as  Tait,  Thompson,  Clerk 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  33 

ISIaxwell,  and  Helrnholtz,  but  in  the  name  of 
reason  herself. 

2.  That  all  Nature  is  one  great  coherent  sys- 
tem. On  this  point  the  latest  science  speaks 
in  even  more  and  more  emphatic  terms. 

3.  That  there  was  once  a  chaotic  condition 
in  which  no  life  existed  nor  was  possible. 

4.  That  the  fitting  up  of  this  world  was  a 
progressive  work. 

5.  That  light  was  antecedent  to  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  sun's  performing  its  function 
for  the  earth. 

6.  That  the  earth  was  once  sheeted  with  an 
envelope  of  waters,  "  nearly  or  quite  univer- 
sal," and  the  heavens  with  vapors. 

7.  That  there  came  a  time  when  continents 
and  seas  began  to  form. 

8.  That  vegetation  next  appeared  anterior 
to  animal  life. 

9.  That  only  at  an  advanced  period  in  the 
earth's  progress  did  the  heavenly  bodies  per- 
form for  it  their  present  functions. 

10.  That  the  early,  if  not  earliest  animal 
life,  was  an  immense  sea-life. 

11.  That  winged  creatures  follow,  strikingly 
conspicuous. 

12.  That  an  age  of  huge  reptiles  and  am- 
phibians— sea  and  land  monsters, — followed 
or  accompanied. 


34         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

13.  That  after  this  came  the  great  mamma- 
lian movement,  as  we  call  it. 

14.  That  man  was  the  greatest  and  last 
step  of  the  creative  work. 

15.  That  he  made  his  appearance  with  his 
peculiar  and  human  faculties,  lord  and  master 
of  the  animal  world. 

To  appreciate  the  marvellous  character  of 
this  account,  I  need  not  lay  beside  it  the 
fragmentary  hints  from  Babylon,  the  absurd- 
ities of  Hindoo,  Egyptian,  Chaldean  cosmog- 
ony, or  even  the  utterances  of  Hesiod.  We 
may  turn  to  classic  antiquity  in  her  bloom, 
and  see  the  best  she  could  say  by  an  Augustan 
poet: 

"Once,  sea  and  earth,  and  sky  that  covers  all, 
One  face  of  nature  were  in  aU  the  globe. 
Which  men  caU  chaos,  rude  and  formless  mass, — 
Nothing  but  inert  weight;  discordant  seeds 
Of  jarring  things  were  all  together  heaped. 
No  sun  was  yielding  to  the  world  his  light. 
No  growing  moon  renewed  her  youthful  horns, 
Nor  hung  the  earth  in  circumambient  air, 
Balanced  by  its  own  weight;  nor  did  the  sea 
Stretch  out  its  arms  along  the  distant  coasts. 
Where'er  was  earth,  was  also  sea  and  air. 
Thus  faithless  was  the  earth,  pathless  the  wave, 
And  dark  the  air ;  its  own  fixed  form  belonged  to  none, 
Each  thing  resisted  each;  in  everj'  part 
Cold  fought  with  hot,  and  moist  with  dry, 
And  soft  with  hard,  the  heavy  with  the  light." 


THE    EARLIEST    COSMOGONY.  35 

Much  of  all  this,  whether  called  poetry  or 
not,  it  will  be  seen,  is  sheer  nonsense.  The 
sequel  avoids  the  same  confusion  only  by  con- 
fining itself  to  an  imaginative  picture  of  the 
earth's  surface  and  surroundings — including 
however  an  actual  division  of  sky  and  earth 
into  five  zones, — closing  indeed  with  man  the 
"ruler  of  the  rest."  Yet  man's  history  is  in 
doubt, — 

"  whether  from  seed  divine 
Formed  by  the  maker  of  a  better  world, 
Or  the  new  earth  just  severed  from  the  sky 
Eetained  some  seed  of  kindred  heaven,  which, 
Mix'd  with  water  from  the  stream,  Prometheus 
Formed  to  the  likeness  of  the  mighty  gods." 

And  yet  before  this  shallow  accoui. '  of  what 
is  called  the  origin  of  the  world  saw  tli  light, 
there  had  been  for  nigh  fifty  years  beyond  the 
Tiber,  within  a  mile  of  the  palace  where  Ovid 
waited  on  Augustus,  a  colony  of  captives  in 
whose  homes  undoubtedly  there  lay  copies  of 
the  Hebrew  manuscript  which  more  than  a 
thousand  years  had  been  proclaiming  to  men 
the  short,  clear,  simple  story  of  the  order  of  the 
creation — the  great  primal  source  of  history. 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


EAKLY  MAN. 


It  will  be  observed  that  nothing  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Pentateuch  is  decisive  for  or 
against  the  theory  of  evolution.  No  utter- 
ance therein  contained  informs  us  whether 
the  production  of  all  these  various  occupants 
of  the  earth  and  seas  was  a  direct  or  mediate 
process.  If  there  is  a  statement  conflicting 
with  the  evolution  theory  in  its  extent,  it  is 
to  be  found  rather  in  the  second  chapter,  at 
tlie  creation  of  woman.  We  need  not  be  pre- 
cipitate in  dealing  with  the  subject.  The 
scientific  objections  to  the  theory,  in  its  ex- 
treme form,  have  always  seemed  to  me  even 
more  insuperable  than  the  scriptural  ones. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  have  spent  one's  life  in 
collecting  or  exploring  all  the  facts  of  natural 
history  to  understand  the  force  of  the  reason- 
ing employed  upon  these  facts.  It  is  com- 
petent for  any  clear-headed  thinker  to  say 
whether  that  reasoning  is  sound  or  unsound. 


EARLY  man:  37 

One  can  readily  admit  what  has  long  been 
known,  the  fact  of  very  great  varieties  exist- 
ing in  any  species — varieties  often  suddenly 
produced  and  yet  permanent,  as  in  the  otter 
breed  of  sheep  and  the  Niata  cattle.  But 
they  are,  so  far  as  has  yet  been  shown,  how- 
ever great  their  deviation,  kept  within  such 
limits  as  not  altogether  to  lose  their  normal 
character.  Perhaps  no  greater  range  of  vari- 
ation is  found  than  in  the  hundred  and  fifty 
races  of  dogs,  more  or  less,  from  Spitz  and  poo- 
dle to  bull-dog,  St  Bernard  and  Newfoundland. 
Yet  in  quality  and  character,  however  devious 
in  detail,  they  are  evermore  unmistakably  dogs. 
The  theory  of  a  gradual  evolution  requires 
an  infinity  of  time  which  astronomers  find 
themselves  less  and  less  able  to  grant,  while 
its  common  accompaniment  of  natural  selec- 
tion as  the  sufficient  explanation  has  been 
often  shown  to  be,  in  Mivart's  words,  "a 
puerile  hypothesis"  and  encounters  the  ob- 
stinate facts  of  species  like  the  globigerina 
and  the  terebratula  caput  serpentis  remaining 
unchanged  from  the  Cretaceous  to  the  present 
time,  and  the  lingula  even  from  the  Cambrian,' 
together  with  the  imiversal  absence  of  the  al- 
leged connecting  links  from  genus  to  genus; 

'  St.  George  Mi vart,  "  Contemporary  Eeview, "  1880,  p. 
37.     Am.  ■Reprint. 


38         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

as  it  encounters,  on  tlie  other  hand,  the 
startling  abruptness  of  the  entrance  of  many 
a  new  and  multitudinous  species,  not  ac- 
counted for  by  any  supposed  loss  of  inter- 
mediate strata,  as  in  the  unbroken  geological 
transition  from  the  Silurian  to  the  Devonian, 
and  from  the  Cretaceous  to  the  Tertiary;  and 
the  theory  of  evolution  per  saltian  also  fails  of 
showing  a  connecting  relation  and  scarcely 
difiers  from  a  direct  creation ;  while  considered 
merely  as  natural  unfoldings,  both  alike  break 
down  before  the  moral  nature — the  reason  and 
will — which  forms  the  huge  hiatus,  the  im- 
passable gulf,  between  the  animals  in  their 
highest  estate  and  man  in  his  lowest.  -  While 
we  may  patiently  and  candidly  examine  all 
evidence,  nothing  can  well  be  more  futile,  it 
seems  to  me,  than  what  Mr.  Huxley  was 
pleased  to  call  a  "  demonstrative  evidence,"  ^ 
drawn  from  finding  some  six  entirely  distinct 
species  of  the  horse  tribe  extending  from  the 
Orohippus  of  the  Eocene — about  the  size  of 
a  fox, — to  the  modern  horse,  by  assuming 
from  certain  similarities,  particularly  of  the 
hoof,  attended  with  very  considerable  differ- 
ences, that  the  one  certainly  sprang  from  the 
other.  The  transition  process  is  precisely 
what  remains  to  be  proved.  It  is  like  the 
2  Lecture  in  New  York.     Sept.  22,  1876. 


EARLY  MAN.  39 

case  of  finding  a  half-dime,  a  dime,  a  double 
dime,  a  quarter,  a  half-dollar  and  a  dollar 
with  even  an  identity  of  composition  and 
great  similarity  of  external  formation,  and 
declaring  that  therefore  the  dollar  is  "de- 
monstrated "  to  have  been  evolved  from  the 
half-dime. 

If  ever  the  theory  can  be  fairly  shown  to  be 
a  fact,  we  will  cheerfully  accept  it,  and  adjust 
our  difficulties  to  it — none  of  which  however 
appear  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  Let  us 
be  careful  not  to  resist  evidence.  But  thus 
far,  "  not  proven  "  must  clearly  be  the  verdict. 

jMeanwhile  we  have  in  the  Pentateuch  a 
connected,  though  greatly  abridged,  account 
of  the  condition  and  institutions  of  primeval 
and  primitive  man,  long  the  sole  knowledge, 
but  now  beginning  to  be  supplemented  and 
confirmed  by  fragmentary  disclosures  of  ar- 
chceology.  Let  us  look  at  this  narrative  and 
its  confirmations. 

(1.)  What  was  the  locality  of  his  earliest  hab- 
itation ?  Our  narrative  presents  us  with  a  first 
and  a  second  point  of  departure  for  the  human 
race — the  second  substantially  the  same  with 
the  first.  What  was  that  ?  ISlo  doubt  inde- 
finite confusion  has  been  thrown  over  this 
question,  in  some  cases  perhaps  not  unwil- 
lingly.    A  class  of  writers  have   been  more 


40         HISTORY  IM   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

than  ready  to  convert  this,  with  all  its  sur- 
roundings, into  a  myth.  And  so  the  place  has 
been  made  impossible  by  thrusting  in  among 
the  rivers,  the  Nile  and  the  Ganges  or  Indus, 
and  among  the  countries,  Ethiopia  and  India. 
One  Christian  writer  would  help  out  the  con- 
fusion by  adding  to  the  Nile  and  the  Ganges 
the  fabulous  "  ocean-river"  of  the  Greek  class- 
ics as  their  common  bond.  For  the  Pishon  no 
less  than  seventeen  streams  or  bodies  of  water 
have  been  suggested,  and  for  the  Gihon  not 
less  than  eighteen.  Among  them  thus  far  we 
do  not  find  included  the  Mississippi  or  the  Am- 
azon,— although  we  do  find  the  Jordan  and 
the  Danube.  Some  would  escape  the  whole 
difficulty  by  affirming  a  probable  transforma- 
tion of  the  earth's  surface  at  the  Deluge;  while 
others  simply  affirm  it  to  be  an  insoluble  ques- 
tion.    It  must  be  handled  cautiously. 

Still  it  must  be  seen  that  the  Biblical  ac- 
count of  the  Garden  of  Eden  has  till  the  traits 
of  an  exact  geographical  description,  endea- 
voring to  set  forth  the  place  by  recognizable 
facts — the  general  region,  the  rivers  that  pro- 
ceeded from  that  region,  the  countries  they  wa- 
tered, and  the  productions  of  those  countries, 
even  to  the  particular  quality  of  the  gold  there 
found,  that  it  is  "good."  Now  the  first  of 
these  rivers  is  unquestionably  the  Euphrates, 


EARLY  MAN.  41 

and  the  region  of  its  rise  is  a  well  known  and 
settled  fact.  The  second,  the  Tigris,  is  almost 
equally  beyond  question,  and  its  chief  sources 
are  within  a  few  miles  of  the  Euphrates — 2000 
paces,  says  Delitzsch  (Comment  in  loco).  The 
general  region  is  thus  somewhat  definitely  and 
positively  settled;  and  here  are  the  two  great- 
est rivers  of  the  country.  Now  midway  be- 
tween two  principal  sources  of  the  Euphrates, 
ten  miles  from  each,  rises  the  third  great  river 
of  the  region,  the  modern  Araxes,  called  by 
the  Persians,  Jichoon-ar-Ras,  which  Reland, 
Rosen m idler.  Von  Raumer,  Kurtz — (and  De- 
litzsch doubtfully')  with  good  reason  iden- 
tify with  the  Gihon.  The  old  difficulty — that 
this  river  encompasses  the  land  of  Gush  and 
that  Gush  must  be  Ethiopia, — has  passed  away. 
Modern  research  has  found  an  ancient  Cushite 
race  in  this  very  region.  Gesenius  was  obliged 
unwillingly  to  extend  Gush  from  Ethiopia  into 
Arabia,  and  Robinson  to  make  it  the  immense 
region  reaching  from  "  Assyria  on  the  N.  E. 
through  Eastern  Arabia  into  Africa"  Raw- 
linson  at  length^  showed  a  remarkable  connec- 

3  He  says  of  the  theory  which  would  include  the  Phasis, 
the  Ai"axes  or  Oxus,  among  the  rivers,  and  identify  Havilah 
with  Colchis,  "It  is  a  possibility  which  Kurtz  and  Buusen 
rightly  regard  as  relatively  the  most  admissible  "—al- 
though he  finally  surrenders  the  question  as  insoluble. 

*  EawUnson,  "Herodotus,"  i.  353. 


42         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

tioii  between  the  Cushites  of  Ethiopia  and  the 
early  inhabitants  of  Babylonia;  Lenormant 
accepts  it  as  a  "proved"  fact^  that  there  was 
a  race  of  Cushites  on  the  lower  Euphrates  and 
Tigris,  Kushites  of  Babylon,  before  the  Chal- 
dean occupants ;  and  JMaspero"  lays  it  down  as 
settled  that  three  principle  Cushite  peoples 
established  themselves  around  the  Persian 
Gulf  The  first,  called  Cossjeans  or  Kisseans, 
by  classic  authors,  settled  on  the  mountain 
region  that  extends  to  the  east  of  the  Tigris; 
the  second  spread  along  the  lower  Tigris  and 
Euphrates;  the  third  occupied  the  southern  re- 
gions of  the  Persian  Gulf,  which  it  left  for  the 
coast  of  the  Mediterranean.'  The  first  of  these 
■would  occupy  the  land  compassed  by  the  Gihon 
or  Araxes,  and  there  remains  but  the  fourth 

5  "Chaldean  Magic,"  pp.  337-347. 

*  "Histoire  Ancienne,"  p.  147. 

''  Dr.  A.  Wieseler  (Zeitschrift  fiir  Kirklische  Wissen- 
schaft,  1882,  p.  3)  finds  Gush  in  the  highlands  of  the  Cau- 
casus north  of  the  sources  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris. 
"For  this  use  of  the  term  I  have  adduced  two  grounds;  (1) 
that  the  Kas  in  Caucasus,  which  corresponds  to  Cush, 
(comp.  also  the  mountains  of  Casius)  etymologically  among 
the  Scythians  according  to  Pliny  ("Nat.  Hist."  vi.  17; 
and  Bopp  in  J.  Grimm,  ("Hist,  of  the  Gar.  Lang."  p. 
234,)  signifies  a  rocky  mountain;  and  (2)  that  the  Indian 
Caucasus  is  still  called  Hindu-Cush.  So  the  clearer  and 
obscurer  expressions,  Kash  and  Kush  are  interchanged 
•with  each  other,  a  fact  which  can  be  confirmed  by  those 
Indoscythian  legends." 


EARLY  MAN.  43 

great  river  to  find.  ]\Iany  have  made  that 
fourth  river  Pishon,  the  old  Phasis,  now  Rion, 
Avhich  flows  from  the  Caucasus  into  the  eastern 
end  of  the  Black  Sea.  But  perhaps  more  prob- 
able (though  lacking  any  traceable  connection 
of  name)  is  the  far  larger  and  nearer  stream 
the  Kizil  Irmak,  or  ancient  Halys,  the  southern 
sources  of  which  are  on  the  western  slope  of 
the  Karabel  mountains,  that  separate  the 
springs  of  the  river  from  those  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, at  a  spot  seventy  miles  E.  N.  E.  from 
Sivas.'  Now,  as  Reland  long  ago  showed, 
(followed  by  Rosenmiiller,)  the  Hebrew  "  Hav- 

8  Chesuey's  "Euj^hrates  aud  Tigris,"  i.  3.  It  should  be 
added  that  nearly  all  who  advocate  the  situation  of  Eden 
in  Armenia  fix  upon  the  Phasis  for  the  Pison,  with  a  simi- 
larity of  name  indeed,  but  with  great  difficulties  in  regard 
to  the  smaller  size  and  far  greater  distance  of  the  stream. 
The  transfer  of  a  name  in  the  lapse  of  ages  is  no  impossible 
thing,  as  is  seen  in  the  name  of  the  wilderness  of  Paran, 
which  now  seems  to  survive  only  in  Wady  Feiran  at  a  very 
considerable  distance  from  the  wilderness  which  it  once 
designated.  Were  it  not  for  the  remoteness  aud  smaller 
size  of  the  Phasis,  this  would  have,  in  the  similarity  of  the 
name,  a  claim  to  be  considered  the  Pison  which  no  other 
stream  presents.  In  failing  to  find  such  a  resemblance  in 
the  Halys  or  Kizil  Irmak,  which  makes  the  doubtful  point, 
one  encounters  only  the  same  difficulty  in  regard  to  name 
which  besets  all  the  other  suppositions,  while  the /ac<  cor- 
responds. So  far  as  I  am  aware.  Col.  Chesney  was  the  first 
to  suggest  the  Halys  instead  of  the  Phasis.  It  is  the  prac- 
tical suggestion  of  a  skilful  British  engineer  who  had  ex- 


44         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

ilah "  is,  in  its  consonant  elements,  slightly 
transposed,  the  same  as  Colchis — the  latter 
having  the  Greek  termination  added.  Colchis 
lay  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  Black  Sea,  ex- 
tending somewhat  indefinitely  toward  the 
south.  It  was  the  land  of  "  the  golden  fleece  " 
and,  according  to  Strabo  (I.  45)  had  great 
riches  of  "  gold  and  silver."  If  we  might  (with 
Onkelos,  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  the  LXX.,  the 
Vulgate,  Furst  and  others)  identify  the  Hebrew 
sholiam  with  the  emerald  or  green  beryl,  and 
what  is  perhaps  more  doubtful  (though  main- 
tained by  the  later  Kabbins,  by  Bo  chart  and 
Fiirst)  the  "  bdellium  "  [n^ta]  with  the  pearl, 
the  case  would  be  still  stronger,  inasmuch  as 
Pliny,  SoJinus  and  Diodorus  Siculus  declare 
that  the  emerald  abounded  in  that  region  and 
the  pearl  fishery  is  mentioned  in  the  Periplus 
as  existing  on  the  coast  of  Colchis.'  Round 
this  region  on  the  south  flows  the  Kizil  Irmak, 
till  after  a  course  of  seven  hundred  miles  it  en- 
ters the  Black  Sea.  In  this  region  ancient  sil- 
ver mines  are  known  to  exist  for  a  distance  of 
two  hundred  miles,  from  Madeh  to  Yuzgat 
and  perhaps  Divrigi.     And  though  in  the  un- 

plored  the  general  region  in  two  successive  expeditions,  and 
has  therefore  some  great  advantages  over  the  speculations 
of  men  who  have  never  visited  the  country. 
9  D).  i.  279,  280. 


EARLY  MAN.  45 

explored  condition  of  the  country  now  it  is  not 
easy  to  iBx  upon  any  considerable  traces  of  the 
more  precious  metal,  yet  its  existence  in  that 
region  is  indicated  alike  by  early  fable,  ancient 
historians,  and  modern  testimony." 

In  this  great  plateau  of  Armenia,  within  a 
radius  of  some  ninety  miles,  there  thus  rise 
the  four  great  rivers  of  the  whole  region,  flow- 
ing respectively  to  the  north-east,  the  east, 
the  south  and  the  south-east,  1600,  1150,  1000 
and  700  miles,  all  springing  from  the  various 
rivulets  which  form  the  water-supply,  "the 
river-system  "  (Kurtz),  the  system  of  water- 
courses,   the    collective    "inj    of   the    region." 

'0  lb.  pp.  276-9.  Most  of  the  speculations  of  modern 
German  scholars  on  the  locality  of  Havilah  are  made  val- 
iieless  for  the  sober  expositor  by  their  assumption  that  this 
narrative  is  a  saga,  and  that  Havilah  may  be  sought  at 
random  in  India  or  elsewhere, — or  as  Friedrich  Delitzsch 
puts  it,  in  Utopia.  This  latter  writer,  in  accordance  with 
his  theory,  would  find  it  in  that  part  of  the  Syrian  desert 
bordering  on  the  Euphrates  and  extending  from  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  northward  as  far  as  Babylon.  A  part  of  the 
region,  he  says,  is  at  present  called  Ard  el-halat,  or  land 
of  downs  ("  Das  Paradies,"  p.  59).  It  has  commonly  been 
asserted  that  this  Havilah  is  necessarily  identical  with  that 
of  ch.  X.  7,  29,  XXV.  18,  1  Sam.  xv.  7,  1  Cliron.  i.  9.  For 
reasons  to  the  contrary,  see  "  Keil's  Commentary"  hi  loco. 

"  For  the  use  of  this  word  (in  the  plural)  to  designate 
waters  (translated  "floods")  see  Jonah  ii.  3,  Ps.  xxiv.  2. 
The  Hebrew  had  no  such  combination  as  "river-system." 
Thus  Wetstein  in  Delitsch's  Genesis,  (and  after  him  Fried- 


46         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

We  may  not  give  special  weight  to  the 
fond  tradition,  still  cherished  in  the  valleys 
of  Central  Armenia,  that  Eden  extended  from 
the  northern  part  of  the  pashalik  of  Mosul  to 
a  point  not  far  north  of  Erzeroom,  to  Tocat 
in  the  west  and  somewhat  beyond  lake  Van 
in  the  east;^^  nor  to  the  tradition,  still  living 
at  Harpoot,  that  paradise  was  on  the  adjacent 
plain;"  nor  to  the  name  Paradise-mountain 
(Edenis-Mta)  that  still  lingers  on  a  lofty  peak 
in  the  Caucasus  above  the  sources  of  the  Rion.'* 
But  in  all  the  learned  confusion  that  has  been 
cast  over  this  subject,  we  can  at  least  say  that 
it  is  possible  to  find  a  local  habitation  for  the 
Scripture  site,  somewhat  clearly,  by  two  cer- 
tain landmarks — the  sources  of  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates — with  a  reasonable  conformity  to 
the  description  in  other  respects,  in  a  tract 
of  country  (the  highlands  of  Armenia)  which, 
in  the  words  of  Col.  Chesney,  confirmed  by  him 

rich  Delitzsch)  dwells  on  the  necessary  oriental  notion  of 
watering  a  garden,  that  it  was  by  a  multitude  of  little  rills, 
countless  little  streams  running  in  every  direction.  In- 
deed any  other  concejition  of  the  formation  of  four  great 
rivers  from  the  same  "inj  in  a  hilly  region  such  as  that 
where  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  originate  is  out  of 
question. 

12  Chesney,  i.  p.  267. 

'3  H.  N.  Wheeler,  "Letters  from  Eden,"  pp.  15,  16. 

"  Freshfield,  "Central  Caucasus,"  p.  277. 


EARLY   MAN.  47 

in  detail,  "  owing-  to  the  variety  of  its  mirface, 
climate  and  temperature,  is  adapted  for  the 
growth  of  almost  every  tree  that  is  pleasant 
to  the  sight  or  good  for  food."''  And  what- 
ever difficulties  of  detail  may  attend  this  lo- 
cation fixed  upon  by  Reland,  Rosen m idler, 
Kurtz,  Bunsen  and  others,  it  has  a  tangible 
basis,  avoids  all  "  mythical "  and  self-contra- 
dictory elements,  meets  no  insuperable  olijec- 
tions,  and  finds  various  confirmations.  And 
somewhere  in  this  region  of  Armenia  eastward, 
perhaps  on  the  southern  slope  of  the  Taurus, 
though  some  would  prefer  a  somewhat  more 
southerly  site,  it  certainly  is  not  unscript- 
ural  to  find  the  home  of  our  first  parents, 
as  well  as  (in  this  general  region)  of  the  se- 
cond set  of  pi'ogenitors  of  the  race.  "The 
mention  of  the  rivers  Tigris  and  Euphrates," 
says  Kurtz,  "points  to  this  [the  highlands  of 
Armenia]  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt." 
And  Friedrich  Delitzsch  who  in  his  elabo- 
rate investigation  would  fix  upon  a  region  in 
Babylonia  just  north  of  Babylon,  does  so  on 
the  basis  that  "  as  to  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates 
no  doubt  is  possible.'""^   Others  (Calvin,  Bochart, 

15  Chesney's  "Euphrates  and  Tigris,"  i.  270. 

16  "Wo  lag  das  Paradies,"  p.  11.  Friedrich  Delitzsch 
eifectually  demolishes  M-hat  he  calls  "Paradise  in  Utoisia" 
— l.  e.,  all  those  theories  which  introduce  impossible  com- 
binations (such  as  the  Nile,  Ganges,  Indus),  in  a  discussion 


48         HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

etc.)  would  find  it  still  farther  south,  below 
the  junction  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  But 
whether  higher  or  lower,  all  sober  exposition 

of  twenty  pages.  But  when  he  reaches  the  ' '  Paradise  in 
Armenia,"  he  dispatches  it  in  four  pages,  and  with  argu- 
ments of  slender  force,  chiefly  the  difficulty  of  finding 
Cush  and  Havilah,  and  secondly  of  deriving  the  four 
streams  from  one.  He  shows,  as  others  have  done,  that 
the  South  Babylonia  Paradise  is  probably  unsupportable, 
inasmuch  as  a  very  large  part  of  the  present  delta  has 
oeen  formed  even  in  historic  times.  His  argument  in  be- 
half of  his  own  theory  is  perhaps  more  ingenioiis  than 
convincing. 

The  difficulty,  dwelt  upon  by  Delitzsch  and  others,  of 
one  "river"  dividing  into  these  four  great  rivers,  is  geo- 
graphically and  hydrostatically  insuperable.  It  is  how- 
ever easily  solved  if  by  "river"  in  the  first  instance  we 
understand  water-supply,  river-system,  streams  collective- 
ly. Delitzsch  would  find  the  garden  of  Eden  in  Babylonia 
between  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  where  they  approach 
each  other  nearest.  His  view  of  the  one  river  divided 
into  four  is  that  the  Euphrates  is  the  one,  and  that  this, 
supplying  a  canal  or  arm  (Pallikopas)  which  leads  from 
the  Euphrates  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  also  the  Shatt  en-Nil, 
another  branch  %vhich  returns  again  into  the  Euphrates, 
and  to  some  extent  sending  water  throiigh  canals  to  the 
Tigris,  meets  the  problem  of  the  one  and  the  four.  One 
is  compelled  to  feel  that  with  all  his  German  ingenuity 
and  exhibition  of  learning,  his  argument  labors  in  every 
direction,  alike  in  his  identification  of  streams,  names, 
and  to  some  degree  countries  and  their  productions— as 
when,  e.  g.,  he  would  find  the  shoham  in  the  cornelian. 
Ho  has  done  good  service  in  exploding  the  "Utopian" 
theory  and  in  showing  that  the  delta,  so  to  call  it,  of  the 
Euphrates  is  of  more  recent  origin. 


EARLY   MAN.  4!) 

must  fix  upon  the  neighborliood  of  these  streams 
— and  according  to  the  narrative,  apparently 
toward  their  sources. 

Now  toward  this  region  in  general,  Western 
Asia,  or  as  some  would  say,  Western  Central 
Asia,  various  confirmatory  indications  point, 
for  the  cradle  of  the  race.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  it  is  easier  to  find  objections  than 
proofs  in  reference  to  any  definite  place.  But 
the  general  region  along  the  Tigris  and  Eu- 
phrates is  settled  by  the  narrative.  Here  in 
the  neighboring  Caucasus  is  found  the  central 
and  highest  form  of  the  human  species;  radi- 
ating from  around  the  elevated  central  region 
of  Asia,  says  Quatrefages,  we  find  the  three 
fundamental  types  of  humanity,  the  black 
man,  the  yellow  man  and  the  white  man." 
And  Guyot  has  well  shown  how,  as  we  recede 
from  this  general  Asiatic  centre  in  every  direc- 
tion, the  tendency  is  manifest  towards  a  more 
or  less  complete  deviation  from  the  best  perfec- 
tion of  the  liuman  face  and  form  ;'-  Brunton  in 
the  interests  of  ethnology  would  h)ok  towards 
the  neighl)orhood  of  the  mouth  of  the  Eu- 
phrates;^' Friedrich  Delitzsch  for  reasons  partly 
geographical  and  largely  speculative,  to  the  re- 

"  "Natural  History  of  Man,"  id.  51. 

'«  "The  Earth  and  Man." 

'9  "The  Bible  and  Science,"  p.  363. 


50         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

gion  around  Babylon.  So  too,  linguistic  affini- 
ties lead  us  back  toward  this  general  region  as 
the  representative  and  radiating  centre  of  the 
languages  of  the  world.  In  refei'ence  to  some 
of  the  languages,  as,e.  f/.,  the  Arj'an,  the  several 
lines  of  divergence  towards  the  south-east, 
south,  south-west,  north-west  and  west  are  as 
distinct  as  the  diverging  lines  of  the  ancient 
glaciers  of  North  America.  Towards  western 
Asia — indeed  towards  this  same  region — point 
the  great  Semitic  group ;  and  if  in  other  cases 
the  indications  are  less  defined  they  still  com- 
port with  such  an  original  home. 

In  western  Asia  seems  to  have  been  the 
original  home  of  the  domestic  animals.  Of 
thirty-five  species  of  these  that  may  be  called 
cosmopolitan,  —  man's  attendants,  —  not  less 
than  thirty-one  appear  to  have  been  natives 
of  Central  Asia  or  Northern  Africa.-"  So  also 
of  grains.  The  six-rowed  barley  of  the  Greeks, 
Romans,  and  Egyptians,  and  the  Egyptian 
wheat,  point  to  the  great  plains  of  Western 
Asia  as  the  locality  whence  they  came."' 
When  in  the  Swiss  lake-dwellings  of  the 
so-called  Neolithic  age  we  find  two  kinds 
of  barley,  three  of  wheat,  and  two  of  millet 
together  with  the  pig,  the   goat  and  cattle, 

20  Southall's  "Recent  Origin  of  Man,"  p.  43. 

21  '  <  British  Quarterly. ' ' 


EARLY  MAN.  51 

these  domestic  animals  and  cultivated  cereals 
make  their  first  appearance  en  masse,  not 
one  by  one;  implying  that  the  villagers  ar- 
rived with  flocks  and  herds  and  seeds.  Mean- 
while the  earliest  traceable  inhabitants  of 
Chaldea,  the  originators  of  the  arrow-headed 
alphabet,  though  found  on  the  plain,  bear  the 
name  "  Accadian,"  which  means  mountaineers, 
and  their  alphabet  itself,  in  the  character  of 
its  signs,  indicates  as  the  original  home  of  the 
writing  a  more  northern  region  with  a  very 
different  fauna  and  flora,  where  the  lion  and 
the  other  great  carnivora  of  the  feline  race 
were  unknown,  while  the  bear  and  the  wolf 
were  common  animals.''-  Among  the  earliest 
traces  of  man  in  Europe  we  find  an  oyster- 
shell  from  the  Red  Sea  at  Thayngen  grotto 
near  Schaflfhausen,  and  fragments  of  the  neph- 
rite of  Asia  in  a  paleolithic  cave  at  Chaleux, 
France,  connecting  them  all  with  either  an 
Asiatic  origin  or  relationship.  And  it  has 
been  observed,  in  the  same  line,  that  when 
in  Europe  we  reach  the  time  of  bronze  im- 
plements, swords,  axes,  spear-heads,  razors, 
knives, — these,  however  widely  dispersed,  by 
their  unity  of  design  and  form  indicate  a 
community  of  origin.  And  from  this  gen- 
eral locality  how  easy  to  discern  the  historic 
'^'i  Lenormaut,  "Chaldean  Magic,"  p.  359. 


52         HISTORY   IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

track  of  the  migrations  of  the  tribes  to  their 
distant  homes,  and,  in  part,  to  account  for 
their  line  of  march  towards  the  severals  points 
of  the  compass. 

But  in  what  condition  was  primeval  man  ? 
The  Scripture  represents  him  as  once  in  a 
state  of  moral  equilibrium,  a  friend  of  God. 
And  here  the  traditions  of  the  nations,  with 
their  golden  age  of  innocence  and  happiness, 
}-e-echo  the  statement.  It  belonged  to  the 
Egyptians,  Chinese,  Hindoos,  Greeks,  Per- 
sians, Thibetians,  and  as  Lenormant  remarks, 
"  is  found  among  all  the  nations  of  the  Aryan 
or  Japhetic  races,  belonging  to  them  prior  to 
their  dispersion  and  being  one  of  the  points 
in  which  their  traditions  place  them  most 
expressly  on  a  common  basis  with  those  of 
the  Semitic  races,  with  those  that  find  ex- 
pression in  Genesis."  -^  He  calls  it  "  one  of 
the  universal  traditions."  But  while  innocent, 
the  Scripture  consistently  supposed  man  in  a 
state  of  moral  immaturity  and  inexperience, 
involving  the  danger  and  the  fact  of  the  fall. 

In  regard  to  early  industrial  condition,  the 
claims  of  the  scriptures  are  moderate.  Some 
light  employment  among  the  trees  that  fur- 
nished his  food  was  his  earlier  task,  and  his 
first  clothing  of  the  simplest  kind,  like  the 
23  "Origines  de  I'Histoire,  p.  58." 


EARLY  MAN.  53 

grass  or  skin  coverings  of  the  rudest  tribes  at 
present,  or  the  skin  robe  of  the  oki  man  of 
Cromagnon.  Here  is  no  nonsense  about  the 
"  rivers  flowing  with  milk  and  with  nectar," 
while  "  honey  dripped  from  the  trees."  He 
was  to  dress  and  keep  the  garden.  His  sons 
are  found  in  the  simplest  modes  of  rural  life, 
keeping  flocks  of  the  smaller  animals,  sheep 
and  goats,  and  tilling  the  soil.  The  arts  in 
their  higher  form  came  in  onlj-  in  the  seventh 
generation,  with  Jabal,  Jubal  and  Tubal  Cain 
— of  which  more  hereafter.  Meanwhile  notice 
the  sobriety  and  consistency  of  the  narrative. 
As  to  his  intellectual  condition  there  is  an 
equally  noteworthy  consistency.  It  is  sufh- 
oiently  manifest  that  a  hun^an  being,  however 
mature  in  size  and  strength,  entering  on  life 
without  experience,  would  require  some  im- 
mediate and  preternatural  knowledge  as  a 
substitute  for  experience;  otherwise  he  would 
be  like  the  new-born  infant  in  capacity  to 
care  for  himself,  and  the  day  of  his  creation 
might  easily  have  been  the  day  of  his  dissolu- 
tion. His  very  faculty  of  sight  would  be 
misleading,  and  all  his  muscular  powers  un- 
manageable. While  therefore  the  scripture 
consistently  and  necessarily  ascribes  to  him  a 
precocious  intelligence  and  some  linguistic 
development,    as    exhibited    in    fitly    giving 


54         HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

names  to  the  animal  world  and  in  recogniz- 
ing the  contrast  of  his  own  solitude,  there  is 
a  clear  intimation  of  his  practical  inexperience 
in  his  being  directed  hij  Ids  Creator  to  make 
the  clothing  of  skins,  and  perhaps  also  in  the 
absence  of  all  surprise  in  Eve's  listening  to  the 
speech  of  one  in  the  form  of  a  serpent. 

The  scriptui'e  thus  makes  a  fully  consistent 
picture, — of  one  in  the  balance  of  the  moral 
nature,  with  Augustine's  "posse  peccare  et 
posse  non  peccare,"  yet  without  the  formed 
character  which  will  make  the  security  of  the 
ransomed;  and,  intellectually,  of  one  entirely 
destitute  of  the  industrial  arts  and  scientific 
attainments,  but  with  a  mental  capacity  full- 
grown.  Nor  is  there  in  my  judgment  any- 
thing to  discredit  this  Biblical  account  in  the 
various  researches  in  the  history  of  the  race, 
but  the  contrary.  It  has  become  customary 
enough  to  assume  with  Lubbock  and  others, 
as  an  axiom,  that  man  started  as  a  low  savage, 
even  if  not  an  animal,  yet  little  above  the 
animals.  That  he  actually  started  not  indeed 
with  the  arts,  but  with  a  high  capacity  for 
their  rapid  development,  may  appear  in  the 
sequel. 

It  is  a  singular  process  of  reasoning  to  take 
the  distant  outcasts  of  the  race,  tribes  that 
wandered  far  away  from  the  native  home  and 


EARLY   MAN.  55 

had  been  subjected  to  all  the  depressing  and 
degrading  influences  attendant,  and  to  insist 
that  tliay  are  representatives   of  that  native 
home.     History  shows  that  there  is  not  only 
such  a  thing  as  progress,  but  such  a  thing 
as  degradation.     And  modern  researches  are 
more  and  more  pointing  us  back  to  a  centre 
of  early   light,   intellectual   and   moral,    and 
bringing  to  distinct  recognition  the  fact  that 
the  greater  the   distance  in  space,  if  not  in 
time,   from   the  central    seat,   as  a  rule,   the 
greater   the    depression.      How   unequal    ha» 
the  human  race,  in  its  highest  attainments, 
shown  itself,  unless  preserved  by  a  superna- 
tural grace  subduing  its  own  innate  seeds  of 
corruption   and  destruction,    to   maintain    its 
high  attainments,  and  how  certainly  has  come 
the  descent  and  fall!     The  old  empires  all  are 
startling  illustrations.    It  remains  to  be  shown, 
if  it  can  be  shown,  that  aside  from  the  presence 
of  a  supernatural  revelation  and  preserving 
influence,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  penno.i(enl 
progress   of  the    human    race.      All    history 
thus  far  goes  to  indicate  that  if  the  human 
mind  is  an  active  thing  it  may  also  be  a  de- 
structive thing,  and  in  the  long  run  human 
depravity  overtakes  and  overthrows  human 
culture,  and  worries  down  human  refinement. 
Every   new   expansion    of  archaeological   in- 


56        HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

quiry  seems  tending   to  give   new   emphasis 
to  this  solemn  lesson  of  all  history. 

It  is  one  of  the  latest  and  growing  theories 
of  philologists  to  regard  the  old  polytheisms 
of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  India  as  the  corruptions 
of  an  older  monotheism.  And  a  great  orient- 
alist informs  us  that  the  one  thing  which  a 
a  comparative  study  of  religions  places  in  the 
clearest  light,  is  the  inevitable  decay  to  which 
religion  is  exposed."  It  has  become  one  of  the 
astounding  revelations  of  modern  times  to  see 
how  far,  far  back  of  all  consecutive  histor}^ 
many  of  the  arts  and  forms  of  civilization 
stand  out  before  us,  as  it  were  full-grown. 
The  great  cities  of  Babylonia  in  ruins  reveal  a 
surprising  early  development.  The  stupen- 
dous works  of  Egypt  burst  upon  us  without 
a  known  history.  Her  whole  sculpture  is  a 
decadence.  We  gaze  upon  the  green  diorite 
statue  of  Cephrenes  (or  Shafra),  and  we  say  it 
is  certainly  a  portrait, — and  how  wonderfully 
superior  to  the  formal  statuary  of  later  times. 
We  gaze  upon  the  still  older  wooden  image 
of  the  village  hde.d  or  sheikh,  so  wonderfully 
life-like,  and  we  say  hei-e  is  something  far 
better  yet.  And  when  we  look  upon  the  two 
older  ones  of  Nefert  and  Ra-hotep  from  May- 

-■*  Max  Miiller,  "Cliii^s  from  a  German  Workshop." 
Preface  xxii. 


EARLY  MAN.  57 

doom,  "  the  oldest  statues  in  the  world,"  we 
say  these  are  the  best  of  all.  Equally  re- 
markable that  oldest  picture  in  the  world,  of 
the  pasturing  geese  from  the  tomb  of  Nefermat, 
as  compared  with  later  Egyptian  paintings, 
so-called. 

So  again  we  look  at  the  early  development 
of  the  Aryan  races  in  comparative  proximity 
to  their  eai'ly  home,  the  Sanscrit  speaking  race, 
the  Persians,  and  the  Greeks,  and  we  cannot 
fail  to  contrast  their  condition  with  that  of 
their  kindred,  the  long  wandering  Celtic  and 
other  tribes  that  were  driven  to  the  distant 
west.  We  witness  the  Caffre  language  appar- 
ently descending  into  the  Hottentot,  and  that 
still  further  falling  into  the  Bushman.  We 
find  men,  e.  (/.,  the  Tasmanians,  living  on  an 
island  without  the  knowledge  of  canoes  that 
must  have  brought  them  thither."  Or  take  a 
still  more  remarkable  and  recent  instance.  In 
1866,  Dr.  W.  A.  Marten  made  a  journey  to 
Honan  in  China,  on  purpose  to  visit  a  Jewish 
colony,  one  of  many  supposed  to  have  existed 
formerly  in  the  empire.  This  at  Honan  has 
long  been  knoAvn  to  the  Christian  world,  hav- 
ing been  discovered  by  Father  Ricci  in  the 
17th  century,  and  claiming  to  have  entered 
China  as  early  as  the  Dynasty  of  Han.  Dr. 
^*  Lubbock's  "Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  450. 


58         HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

Marten  found  a  remnant  of  3000  to  4000  com- 
pletely demoralized  and  even  unjudaized.  A 
solitary  stone  marked  the  place  of  their  syna- 
gogue, on  which  an  inscription  commemorat- 
ed its  erection,  about  a.  d.  1183.  They  had 
copies  of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  of  which 
no  man  was  able  to  read  one  word.  With  a 
rabbi,  the  father  of  one  of  Dr.  Marten's  visitors, 
had  perished,  forty  years  before,  the  last  vestige 
of  acquaintance  with  the  sacred  tongue.  They 
have  no  knowledge  of  their  tribe  pedigree, 
keep  no  register,  and  now  never  assemble  in 
a  congregation.  They  remember  the  names  of 
the  feasts  of  Tabernacles  and  of  unleavened 
bread  as  practised  by  a  former  generation,  and 
have  lately  abandoned  circumcision.  One  of 
them  had  lately  became  a  Buddhist  priest, 
another  had  a  heathen  wife.  The  living  gen- 
eration had  pulled  dowii  their  synagogue  and 
sold  its  stones  and  timber  to  obtain  relief  for 
their  bodily  wants,  and  the  large  tablet  that 
once  adorned  its  entrance,  bearing  in  gilded 
Chinese  characters  the  name  "  Israel,"  now 
belongs  to  a  JMohammedan  mosque.  The  only 
distinctive  mark  that  is  left  them  is  the  cus- 
tom of  picking  the  sinews  out  of  the  flesh  they 
eat — commemorative  of  Jacob's  conflict  with 
the  angel.-'' 

26  "The  Chinese,"  pp.  295-7.     Harpers,  1881. 


EARLY   MAN.  59 

The  Veddas  of  Ceylon,  now  savages  of  the 
most  debased  type,  are  degenerate  descendants 
of  the  tribe  who  brought  Aryan  civilization  to 
Hindustan.  "  ^lore  than  half  their  words," 
says  Max  Miiller,  are  corruptions  of  the  Sans- 
crit; "  they  may  possibly  prove  in  language,  if 
not  in  blood,  the  distant  cousins  of  Plato, 
Goethe  and  Newton."^' 

Now,  with  such  specific  illustrations  before 
us,  and  with  our  eyes  upon  the  singular  col- 
lapses of  great  nations,  as  in  Egypt,  Greece 
and  Italy,  where  printing  and  especially  Chris- 
tianity had  not  found  their  way,  or  the  latter 
had  lost  its  power,  how  can  we  for  an  instant 
maintain  that  savagism  was  necessarily  the 
primitive,  rather  than  derivative  state  of  man. 
I  anticipate  that  more  and  more  the  process 
of  research  may  indicate  that  in  fact  it  was 
not  so,  and  that  the  standard  of  ancient  hu- 
manity is  no  more  to  be  sought  in  the  caves 
of  Neanderthal,  Liege,  Mentone,  or  Furfooz, 
than  that  of  modern  civilization  in  the  Bush- 
man, the  Australian,  the  Terra  del  Fuegian  or 
the  Sioux  Indian.  Physical  degradation  also 
accompanies  the  moral  and  intellectual.-* 

What  now  were  the  early  institutions  of 
man  ?     Here  we  may  glory  in  our  Pentateuch 

27  Geike's  "Horns  with  the  Bible,"  i.  p.  1S5. 

28  On  this  subject  see  Argyll's  "Primeval  Mau,"  \i.  155 


60         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

The  second  chapter  of  Genesis  has  well  been 
called  the  most  momentous  of  records.  In  its 
announcement  of  man's  early  institutions — 
its  provision  for  his  fullest  destiny — it  shines 
out  on  this  dark  world  like  the  flash  of  light 
through  chaos.  There  is  nothing  like  it. 
Two  great  institutions,  founded  upon  his  deep- 
est wants  and  nearest  relationships,  were  to 
have  been  the  guaranty  of  his  well-being,  and 
are  now  the  hope  of  his  future. 

The  first  was  that  of  marriage  and  the  fam- 
ily, as  defined  in  that  great  original  law  of 
monogamy,  which  in  its  first  perfect  form  was 
issued  in  paradise.  Was  there  ever  an  utterance 
like  it,  except  in  the  New  Testament  exempli- 
fication of  it  ?  Woman  taken  from  the  side 
of  man  to  indicate  identity,  intimacy,  sym- 
pathy, dependence,  to  call  for  tenderness, 
shelter,  protection — the  two  to  be  bound  to- 
gether as  one,  in  an  indissoluble  bond,  above 
that  which  binds  any  and  all  other  earthly 
relationships — "one  flesh,"  "bone  of  my  bone 
and  flesh  of  my  flesh."  Herein  lies  the  cradle 
of  the  home,  and  the  empire  of  woman.  When 
was  ever  such  a  picture  drawn  except  in  that 
same  holy  book — as  when  the  apostle  finds 
in  the  relation  of  Christ  and  his  church,  in 
the  supreme  self-sacrifice  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  profound  love  and   devotion  on  the 


EARLY  MAN.  61 

other,  an  unfolding  of  the  symbol  of  marriage. 
It  is  a  sublime,  a  divine,  conception  (Eph.  v. 
25-33).  How  on  the  one  hand  do  the  true 
marriages  that  are  "made  in  heaven,"  and  on 
the  other  the  polygamies  and  the  divorces 
that  are  made  in  hell,  flash  their  sacred  or 
their  lurid  light  over  the  grandeur  of  God's 
primal  institution  for  man.  And  it  will  be 
observed  that  when  polygamy  creeps  into 
history,  it  is  first  as  the  doing  of  the  Cainite 
race,  and,  in  the  patriarchal  line,  as  the  off- 
spring either  of  a  want  of  faith  in  God,  or  of 
fraud,  and  as  the  germ  of  family  trouble.  And 
it  is  also  to  be  observed  how  futile  must  be 
all  attempts  to  raise  or  maintain  the  position 
of  woman  except  on  that  divine  and  primeval 
basis.  All  history  shows  that  the  race  was 
made  for  wedlock.  It  also  shows  that,  whether 
in  or  out  of  wedlock,  woman  is  and  must  be 
from  her  constitution  the  weaker  and  the 
dependent,  and  in  a  fight  for  ascendency  the 
weaker  must  go  to  the  wall.  It  shows,  too, 
if  it  shows  anything,  how  vain  is  the  hope 
of  a  radical  improvement  of  the  human  con- 
dition by  external  arrangements  that  leave 
the  human  spirit  unchanged,  full  of  its  self- 
ishness, malignity  and  brutality.  A  swine  in 
a  garden  is  none  the  less  a  swine.  And  when 
we  look  upon  the  awful  separations  and  hor- 


62         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

rible  relations  that  human  sinfulness  creates 
so  continually  between  the  nearest  of  relatives 
and  friends,  sown  in  guilt  and  reaped  in  crime, 
we  are  brought  back  to  the  obvious  fact  that 
the  only  adequate  remedy  for  the  wrongs  of 
woman  is  a  return  to  the  divine  ideal  of  the 
true  relationship.  No  crusade  of  blind  com- 
plaints and  reproaches  will  eradicate  the  cause 
of  complaint.  No  scramble  for  man's  functious 
— whereby  she  becomes  not  masculine  but  man- 
nish— will  make  the  woman  content.  No  acts 
of  legislation  will  carry  happiness  into  a  dis- 
cordant home,  or  protect  the  victim  from  the 
destroyer.  But  just  so  far  as  the  great  law 
of  paradise  is  restored  and  realized,  just  so 
far  will  come — as  has  been  coming — all  needed 
outward  reform,  founded  on  the  inner  spirit 
that  alone  will  make  the  law  a  life  and  a 
fact.  All  observation  and  all  history  lend 
their  sanction  to  this  divine  original  institu- 
tion. In  the  formation  of  the  woman  we  find 
the  greatest  apparent  scriptural  obstacle  to  the 
theory  of  evolution.  j\Ir.  T.  L.  Brunton  admits 
this  to  be  so;  "If  we  are  to  take  the  words 
of  the  Bible  as  an  accurate  account  of  the  crea- 
tion of  woman,  I  do  not  see  how  we  are  to 
reconcile  it  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution."-" 
The  details  of  the  narrative  at  this  point  are 
29  Brunton's  "Bible  and  Science,"  p.  353. 


EARLY  MAN.  63 

SO  brief  and  so  obscure  that  it  is  easy  for  any 
man  to  ask  questions  that  no  man  can  answer. 
We  cannot  say  with  certainty  that  the  y?V  was 
a  rib.  The  word  elsewhere  designates  more 
nearly  a  sic?e,  as  of  a  mountain,  the  tabernacle, 
an  altar,  the  heavens,  as  a  door,  a  side  chamber, 
the  side  of  a  man; — perhaps  in  two  passages 
(I  Kings  vi.  15-16;  vii.  3)  the  beams  of  a  build- 
ing, in  no  case  clearly  the  human  rib.  But 
if  not  this,  what  then  ?  Was  it  some  portion 
of  the  frame  originally  added  for  the  purpose 
of  being  removed  ?  We  can  only  say  that  it 
was  one  of  similar  portions  remaining,  (ni?^V 
plural.)  Some^°  have  gone  so  far  as  to  accept 
the  theory  of  the  Talmud,  the  Targums  and 
Maimonedes,  of  an  original  androgyous  man, 
afterwards  separated  into  man  and  woman — 
a  construction  which  forces  the  narrative  out 
of  shape;  for  God  took  the  vh);  and  "?/iac?eit 
into  a  woman."  If  we  understand  this  to  be 
in  all  respects  a  literal  and  objective  state- 
ment, we  still  have,  remarkably  sustained 
from  the  first,  the  law  that  now  prevails 
through  all  life — that,  as  Huxley  would  say, 
the  living  protoplasm  comes  from  living  pro- 
toplean — life  from  previous  life,  the  woman 
comes  from  the  man. 

Nor  can  we  with  Brunton  call  this  "  a  par- 
30  Lenormant,  apparently,  "Origines,"  p.  58. 


64         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

able."  For  the  account  bears  as  fully  the  as- 
pect of  a  narrative  as  any  other  portion  of 
the  Pentateuch,  and  to  admit  snch  a  deviation 
would  throw  us  upon  an  ocean  of  uncertainties. 
Delitzsch"  approaches  nearer  an  admissible 
hypothesis  when  he  intimates  that  it  may  be 
a  "  symbolical  "  narrative. 

But  there  is  perhaps  a  possible  solution  for 
those  who  seek  it,  growing  out  of  the  recorded 
fact  that  the  man  was  cast  into  a  "  deep  sleep" 
(nmin)  before  the  formation  of  the  woman. 
And  we  may  possibly  compare  the  similar 
state  of  HOTin  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Gen- 
sis  (v.  12),  in  which  Abram  received  the  com- 
munications of  God,  and  apparently  had  the 
vision  of  the  pillar  of  smoke  and  flame  pass- 
ing between  the  divided  victims  and  symbol- 
izing the  covenant  of  God  with  him.  It  may 
be  thought  possible  to  understand  that  Adam's 
sleep  in  like  manner  continued  and  the  follow- 
ing transaction  was  the  vision  in  that  sleep 
whereby  God  signified  to  him  the  indissoluble 
union  with  the  wife.  But  even  in  this  case 
there  remains  the  fact  asserted  not  only  here, 
but  in  1  Tim.  ii.  13,  that  "Adam  was  first 
formed,  then  Eve."  And  in  accepting  the  fact 
we  accept  no  greater  difficulty  than  the  evo- 
lutionist here  encounters,  nor  so  great;  for  in 
31  "0.  T.  His."  p.  23. 


EARLY  MAN.  65 

God's  agency,  deliberately  establishing  the  re- 
lations of  the  sexes,  we  have  an  intelligent 
plan  and  cause,  and  a  rational  end  in  view, 
from  the  beginning;  whereas  that  great  un- 
changed, perpetual  and  substantially  equal 
relation  of  sex  that  runs  through  not  only 
the  human  race  but  all  the  countless  races  of 
the  earth,  is  one  of  the  problems  before  which 
any  theory  of  evolution  that  excludes  a  grand 
preliminary  plan  and  a  mighty  governing 
power,  only  betrays  its  helplessness  and 
puerility.  It  is  one  of  the  insoluble  pro- 
blems for  any  form  of  development  hypoth- 
esis that  excludes  the  final  cause  and  the 
First  Cause. 

The  other  signal  institution  of  primeval  man, 
which  met  him  apparently  at  his  origin,  was 
that  institution  which  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  all  outer  worship  of  God  and  all  organized 
beneficence  towards  man,  the  bulwark  of  so- 
ciety, the  supplement  of  the  home,  the  univer- 
sal refiner  and  civilizer,  the  guaranty  of  social 
order  and  friendly  relationship,  the  institution 
whereby  all  other  human  institutions  are  pre- 
served and  made  eff'ective — the  seventh  sacred 
(lay.  It  is  difticult  to  see  any  propriety  in  un- 
derstanding the  narrative  of  its  establishment 
as  a  prolepsis,  or  any  cogency  in  the  reasons 
rendered  for  thus  forcing  the  narrative.     It 


66         HISTORY  IN   THE  PENTATEUCH. 

clearly  is  recorded  as  a  part  of  the  preparation 
of  the  world  for  man.  Man's  whole  nature, 
physical,  intellectual,  social,  moral  and  spir- 
itual, has  been  proved  over  and  over  to  coin- 
cide with  the  Saviour's  declaration,  "  the  Sab- 
bath was  made  for  man."  The  whole  record 
is  consistent  with  itself  For  besides  the  in- 
dications of  the  week  usually  recounted  from 
the  Pentateuch,  as  repeatedly  occurring  in  the 
narrative  of  the  flood,  the  time  of  circum- 
cision, the  weeks  or  heptades  of  Jacob's  court- 
ship, the  seven  days  of  Joseph's  mourning,  we 
find  the  complete  or  sacred  number  in  God's 
assurance  to  Cain  of  a  "  sevenfold  vengeance," 
as  well  as  in  Lamech's  "  seventy-and-seven- 
fold,"  and  even  incorporated  into  the  Hebrew 
language  in  the  term  for  sivearing,  which  is  to 
"seven  oneself"  It  is  hard  even  to  believe 
that  when  Cain  and  Abel  came  with  their  sac- 
rifices, apparently  at  the  same  time,  and  that 
time  "the  end  of  days,"  this  end  of  days  was 
other  than  the  sacred  seventh  day.  That  the 
nations  in  their  dispersion  and  moral  deterio- 
ration should  have  lost  the  observance,  as  very 
likely  had  the  Hebrews  during  the  slavery  of 
Egypt,  was  to  have  been  expected.  And  yet 
there  are  indications  enough  of  the  wide  dif- 
fusion of  this  hebdomadal  division  of  time  to 
connect  themselves  in   a  very  striking  way 


EARLY   MAN.  67 

with  the  primeval  appointment.  Bunsen  af- 
firms a  seven  days  division  for  astrological 
purposes  in  China  to  be  of  proved  antiquity;" 
it  was  known  to  the  ancestors  of  the  Hindoos  ;^^ 
and  would  seem  to  have  been  known  in  ancient 
Egypt,  as  well  as  a  period  of  ten  days.  How 
extensively  it  can  be  traced  among  the  nor- 
thern nations  of  Europe  is  a  field  for  fur- 
ther inquiry.  But  at  Athens  the  sections  of 
Prytanes,  apparently  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Cleisthenes,  held  office  seven  days  at  a  time; 
and  one  of  the  very  latest  results  of  oriental 
research  is  the  positive  statement  by  Geo. 
Smith,  Sayce  and  others,  that  from  a  very 
early  period — before  the  migration  of  Abram — 
the  Accadians  of  Babylonia  and  Chaldea  had 
the  seven-day  week  and  the  sacred  Sabbath,^* 

32  "Egypt's  Place  in  History,"  iii.  p.  290. 

33  Dr.  Burgess  in  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  Oct.  1858. 

3-'  Mr.  Richard  A.  Proctor,  who  has  devoted  a  large 
amount  of  space,  in  his  recent  volume  on  the  "Great 
Pj'ramid,"  to  the  advocacy  of  the  theory  that  week  origin- 
ated from  halving  the  lunation  and  then  halving  that  half, 
naively  remarks,  after  his  prolonged  discussion,  that  "a 
more  careful  study  of  her  [the  moon's]  motions  suggests 
the  division  of  the  lunar  month  into  six  periods  of  five 
days  each  rather  than  into  four  periods  of  seven  days 
each."  If  he  had  said  that  not  only  a  "careful  study" 
hut  perpetual  observation  would  sooner  suggest  the  one 
first  than  the  second,  he  would  have  been  quite  safe.  See 
the  "Great  Pyramid,"  p.  272. 


68         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

wherein  no  work  should  be  done.  The  at- 
tempt to  explain  this  wide-spread  arrangement 
as  a  subdivision  of  a  lunar  month  is  not  sus- 
tained by  the  planetary  names  given  to  the 
days ;  and  meets  the  obvious  difficulty  that  the 
week  is  not  an  aliquot  part  of  a  lunation — the 
latter  being  twenty-nine  and  a  half  days,  of 
which  by  far  the  nearest  proximate  division 
would  be  the  very  close  division  of  ten-day 
periods,  which  also  prevailed  in  Egypt." 

And  the  institution  of  that  form  of  worship 
which  took  the  shape  of  sacrifice,  after  the 
fall,  "  at  the  end  of  days,"  stands  singularly 
confirmed  in  its  survival  through  all  times  and 
almost  all  races  of  the  earth.  So  that  it  is  of 
little  moment  whether  we  view  it  as  a  direct 
divine  appointment  or  an  instinctive  impulse 
of  the  human  soul;  for  the  amazing  tenacity 
with  which  it  has  clung  to  the  race  in  all  its 
wanderings,  bears  testimony  to  its  inherent 
necessity  to  primeval  fallen  man,  and  confirms 
its  early  origin. 

The  narrative  of  the  first  sin  too,  has  not 
only  a  consistency  that  grows  on  the  contem- 
plation, but  off'ers  the  only  solution  of  the  dim 
traditions  of  the  distant  past.  It  has  been  not 
uncommon  to  question  the  fitness  of  the  pro- 

35  Sayce,  "Chaldean  Genesis,"  pp.  89,  308.  George 
Smith,  "Chaldean  Discoveries,"  p.  12. 


EARLY  MAN.  69 

liibition  as  a  test  of  obedience,  as  tlioiigh  out 
ofkeeping  with  the  magnitude  of  the  occasion. 
But  a  moment's  reflection  shows  that  not  only 
could  the  principle  of  a  genuine  obedience  be 
tested  as  well  in  that  mode  as  any  other,  but, 
what  is  more  important,  that  some  such  me- 
thod was  the  only  one  in  keeping  with  the 
circumstances  of  the  narrative,  and  further  yet, 
the  only  method  practicable  in  those  simplest 
conditions  of  early  life.  All  the  complicated 
relations  of  advanced  civilization  and  even  of 
society  were  wanting.  Here  were  two  persons 
in  a  garden  of  nature.  Fraud,  theft,  adultery, 
arson,  robbery,  were  impossible,  murder  as 
yet  inconceivable,  all  overt  acts  of  cruelty,  if 
not  impossible,  yet  without  a  possible  motive. 
What  other  form  of  test  could  or  can  well  be 
devised  than  just  such  as  that  adopted,  standing 
thus  related  to  their  actual  life  and  condition. 
To  a  profounder  reflection  it  carries  on  its  face 
the  stamp  of  verisimilitude,  and  those  more 
striking  devices  which  the  objection  would  re- 
quire, would,  in  their  inconsistency,  brand  the 
narrative  as  untrue.  And  while  in  some  as- 
pects mystery  must  hang  over  any  speculation 
on  the  modes  of  the  first  human  sin,  our  nar- 
rative offers  perhaps  all  the  help  that  can  be 
given  when  it  traces  the  source  of  the  seduc- 
tion to  an  outer  influence,  distinctly  explained 


70         HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

in  the  New  Testament/''  as  "that  old  serpent 
which  is  called  the  devil  and  Satan,"  and  when 
it  couples  with  the  persuasions  of  the  appetite 
the  specious  inducement  of  a  higher  good — 
"  ye  shall  be  as  gods" — and  a  pressure  applied 
to  the  more  emotional  of  the  pair.  And  while 
the  real  agent  is  thus  identified  with  Satan,  1 
see — in  accordance  with  a  narrative  which  de- 
scribed all  as  it  appeared — no  fair  mode  of  es- 
caping from  the  recognition  of  the  actual  ob- 
jective appearance  of  a  serpent,  chosen  for  the 
reason  suggested  in  the  narrative,  the  subtlety 
of  the  movement  that  comes  and  goes  so 
stealthily  and  so  unexpectedly,  and  the  asso- 
ciation thereby  awakened.  The  one  grave  ob- 
jection, that  this  is  the  concession  of  a  mirac- 
ulous transaction  for  the  purpose  of  deception, 
is  perhaps  sufficiently  answered  by  saying 
that  to  them  it  was  no  miracle, — for  there  was 
no  adequate  knowledge  of  a  settled  course  of 
nature, — but  an  ordinary  phenomenon. 

I  stand  the  more  firmly  by  this  view,  from 
the  striking  confirmation  which  is  found 
in  the  ancient  and  wide-spread  traditions 
of  the  east,  pointing  definitely  to  precisely 
such  a  transaction.  We  not  only  find  the 
sacred  tree  that  gave  immortality — the  Indian 
Kalpanksham,  the  Persian  Horn,  the  Arab 
36  Rev.  xii.  9;  xx.  2;  John  viii.  44. 


EARLY   MAN.  71 

Tuba,  the  Greek  Lotus,  the  tree  in  the  coffin  at 
Warka,  and  Babylon  named  "the  place  of  the 
tree  of  life;""  we  also  find  the  ruin  of  the 
race  connected  with  the  eating  from  a  tree, 
in  the  Edda  of  the  north,  in  the  Zendavesta, 
and  in  the  legend  of  Thibet,  and  a  deceiver 
also  appears,  who  is  in  some  cases  the  ser- 
pent.'* Indeed  the  serpent  figures  largely  in 
traditions,  in  Egypt,  Chaldea,  Persia,  Phenicia 
and  elsewhere,  as  the  enemy  of  the  gods. 

The  confirmation  becomes  more  definite 
and  singular  still.  We  find  not  only  a  Baby- 
lonian cylinder  of  the  9th  century  b.  c,  show- 
ing the  sacred  tree  with  attendant  figures  and 
eagle-headed  guardians,  and  another  cylinder 
showing  the  sacred  tree  with  "attendant 
Cherubim ;"  but  we  find  another  early  Baby- 
lonian cylinder  with  sacred  tree  showing  fruit, 
a  seated  human  figure  on  each  side,  each  with 
a  hand  extended  towards  it,  and  a  serpent  be- 
hind the  one  whose  hand  is  nearest  to  the 
fruit  ;'^  a  vase  from  Cyprus  of  the  6th  or  7th 
century  b.  c,  (now  in  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum of  N.  Y.)  from  the  branches  of  which 
hang  two  large  clusters  of  fruit,  while  a  great 

37  Geike,  "Hours  with  the  Bible,"  pp.  116-7. 

38  76.  p.  119. 

39  Smith's  "Chaldaische  Genesis,"  ed.  Friedrich  De- 
litzsch,  pp.  98,  87. 


72         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

serpent  approaches  and  prepares  to  seize  one 
of  them  with  his  mouth;  a  famous  sarcophagus 
in  the  Capitoline  Museum  shows,  near  Titan, 
son  of  lapetus,  who  performs  his  work  as 
moulder  or  designer,  a  man  and  woman 
standing  nude  at  the  foot  of  a  tree  from 
which  the  man  makes  the  gesture  of  gath- 
ering the  fruit;  a  bas-relief  laid  in  the  wall 
of  the  garden  of  Villa  Albani  at  Rome  pre- 
sents the  same  group,  with  a  serpent  twined 
around  the  trunk  of  the  tree  under  the  shade 
of  which  the  two  mortals  stand.*"  All  these  are 
the  distant  echoes  of  the  scripture  record, 
drawing  their  significance  from  that  simple 
story  of  which  the  same  sacred  volume  offers 
also  the  solution.  "In  all  antiquity  the  ser- 
pent was  the  symbol  of  cunning,  baseness 
and  seduction." 

For  the  promise  of  the  tempter  was  fulfilled 
like  those  of  later  tempters, 

"That  palter  with  us  in  a  double  sense; 
That  keep  the  word  of  promise  to  our  ears, 
And  break  it  to  our  hope." 

They  did  indeed  "know  good  and  evil,"  the 
one  as  lost,  and  the  other  as  fatally  found. 
And  thus,  too,  emerges  the  force  and  sym- 
bolism of  the  doom  pronounced  upon  the  real 

40  Lenormant,  "Origines,"  pp.  92-4. 
4'  Tuch,  "Genesis,"  p.  84. 


EARLY  MAM.  73 

tempter — for  against  him  was  it  aimed.  It 
involved  no  change  in  the  animal,  the  reptile, 
whose  change  from  an  erect  to  a  prone  posi- 
tion and  motion  would  have  involved  a 
change  in  every  muscle,  bone,  process  and 
organ  of  the  body, — a  re-creation, — but  it 
was  a  curse  in  symbolic  form.  A  serpent's 
form  thou  hast  assumed,  a  serpent's  doom  and 
destiny  shall  be  thine;  thy  career  shall  be  that 
of  a  wretched  crawler  and  dirt  eater,  inflict- 
ing with  thy  poison  a  dangerous,  and  possibly 
fatal,  wound  upon  the  woman's  seed,  but  re- 
ceiving in  turn  a  crushing  blow  from  the  seed 
of  the  woman,  and  especially  from  that  chosen 
seed  who  was  revealed  "that  he  might  de- 
stroy the  works  of  the  devil,"  and  who  in 
token  of  that  ascendency  and  dominion  so 
often  ejected  Satan's  agents  from  the  demoni- 
acs of  Palestine. 

Ejected  now  from  that  home  of  innocence 
and  from  the  tree  of  life,  that  sacramental 
tree, — which  like  the  sacred  bread  and  wine 
could  symbolize  but  not  give  immoi-tal  life, 
and  of  which  the  eating  were  now  a  profana- 
tion till  man  stands  again  by  its  side  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  of  life, — he  began  his  ex- 
perience of  that  threatened  death  of  which 
all  history  bears  witness,  and  of  which  the 
essential  fact  was  never  so  well  expressed  as 


74        HISTORY  m    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

by  Augustine  when  he  said,  "  death  of  the 
bf)dy  is  the  separation  of  the  body  from  the 
soul,  but  death  of  the  soul  is  separation  of  the 
soul  from  God."  For  in  this  fruitful  central 
germ  is  all  sin  and  all  resultant  woe.  Then 
and  thus  all  the  moral  faculties  work  abnor- 
mally, falsely,  and  therefore,  wretchedly. 

And  so  that  death  showed  itself  first  in  the 
sense  of  shame;  then  in  the  shrinking  from 
God's  presence ;  then  in  crimination,  the  one 
of  the  other  and  of  God;  unfolding  still  further 
in  the  fearful  utterance  that  announced  all 
the  pain,  anxiety  and  woe  that  gather  over 
woman's  lot  in  connection  with  her  offspring, 
and  with  the  frequent  tyranny  of  the  husband 
taking  the  place  of  the  normal  and  loving 
protection  and  dependence,  and  in  the  per- 
version of  man's  toil  from  its  normal  pleasant- 
ness to  be  a  drudgery,  wearing  and  uncertain 
in  the  process,  and  bitterly  disappointing  in 
its  best  earthly  hopes  and  fruits,  and  ending 
in  the  physical  decease  which,  though  not  the 
primary  gravamen  of  the  threatened  death,  is 
yet  its  sad  and  fitting  symbol.  And  how 
soon  all  this  horror  for  the  man  and  the  wo- 
man and  the  world  culminated  in  the  first 
fratricide.  How  the  history  of  the  murderer 
down  through  all  time  was  delineated  in  that 
titanic  and  terrible  figure,  which  represents 


EARLY  MAN.  ^  75 

the  earth  as  opening  her  mouth  to  receive  the 
blood  of  the  victim  and  hurhng  back  from 
that  open  mouth  a  curse  upon  the  criminal. 
And  in  the  remorse  and  terror  that  weighed 
him  down  and  chased  him  through  the  land 
of  "  wandering,"  haunted  by  the  presence  of 
God  and  the  threatening  spectral  hand  of  man, 
and  that  made  him  build  his  fenced  city  or 
stronghold,  like  some  mediasval  robber's  cas- 
tle, we  read  by  anticipation  the  vivid  pictures 
of  the  masters  of  tragedy  and  romance,  in 
some  Macbeth  or  Sykes,  or  the  facts  of  actnal 
occurrence  as  in  the  Knapps  and  Crownin- 
shields  of  real  life.  Meanwhile  in  the  trials 
and  sorrows  that  have  embittered  the  social 
life  of  the  race,  in  the  burdens  and  anxieties 
that  have  poisoned  their  labor,  in  the  crimes 
and  woes  that  have  filled  the  earth  and  as- 
sailed the  heavens  with  their  cries  and  groans, 
and  in  the  thick  and  heavy  clouds  that  have 
hung  over  human  prospects  further  back  than 
the  dawnings  of  human  history,  we  read  the 
substantial  verity  of  the  sweeping  curse  pro- 
nounced upon  the  progenitors  of  our  race — 
the  ancient  anathema  travelling  downward 
through  the  centuries,  till  it  meets  one  who 
comes  up  "alone  with  dyed  garments,"'  but 
"travelling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength, 
speaking  in  righteousness  and  mighty  to  save." 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


THE  EAELY  ABTS. 


A  NOTEWORTHY  feature  of  our  advanced  civi- 
lization is  the  unconsciousness  with  which  we 
inherit  a  vast  mass  of  things — utensils,  usages 
and  methods — the  discovery  or  invention  of 
each  one  of  which  has  been  a  great  stride  in 
human  life  and  achievement.  We  justly  glory 
over  our  modern  inventions,  many  of  which, 
such  as  photographic,  electric,  and  steam  ap- 
paratus, began  in  the  application  of  the  sim- 
plest principles,  at  first  in  a  modest  way,  and 
which  waited  almost  to  our  day  for  that  first 
rude  application.  It  is  with  profound  surprise 
that  we  walk  through  some  collection  of  an- 
cient relics,  as  in  the  museum  at  Naples,  and 
see  there  anticipated  so  many  things,  such  as 
dentist's  implements  and  the  like,  which,  we 
had  supposed,  belonged  only  to  modern  times; 
or,  that  in  still  more  ancient  collections,  like 
that  of  the  Boulak  Museum  in  Cairo,  we  look 
upon  a  modern  fish-hook,  the  children's  dolls 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  77 

and  playthings,  the  paraphernalia  of  ladies' 
toilets,  or  the  superb  jewelry  of  an  ancient 
queen.  But  far  more  remarkable  are  the 
commoner  inheritances  from  the  past,  so  iden- 
tified with  our  daily  life  that  we  never  think 
of  their  origination.  Yet  those  were  bold  men 
who  first  ventured  upon  many  an  article  of 
our  food,  and  to  the  last  degree  ingenious  men 
who  first  devised  a  multitude  of  processes  con- 
nected with  its  preparation.  The  grinding 
of  grain,  the  use  of  leaven,  and  a  thousand 
things  connected  with  the  sustenance  of  life, 
whence  came  they  ?  So  with  the  commonest 
appliances;  a  nail,  a  screw,  a  pulley,  a  lamp, 
a  pair  of  scissors,  a  chair,  a  table,  a  kettle,  a 
chimney,  the  forging  of  metals,  the  making 
of  glass,  were  in  some  sense  grander  inven- 
tions than  the  steam  engine  and  its  contem- 
poraries, because  they  enter  so  closely  into 
all  the  daily  round  and  comfort  of  living  of 
all  men. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  the  oldest  men- 
tion or  implication  of  many  of  the  great 
conveniences  and  processes  of  common  life  is 
found  in  the  sacred  record.  And  here  the 
narrative  is  not  only  self-consistent,  but  is 
abundantly  sustained  by  the  remotest  investi- 
gations of  the  latest  time. 

The  brevity  of  an  ancient  narrative  often  re- 


78         HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

veals  only  by  suggestion  or  implication.  The 
first  clear  indication  of  primeval  implements 
is  to  be  found  in  the  coats  of  skins.  For,  the 
sewing  of  the  fig-leaves,  as  we  gather  from 
the  use  of  the  word  "isri  and  its  equivalents 
^sn  and  i'S^j  was  not  necessarily  more  than 
tying  them  or  making  them  in  any  way  ad- 
here together.  But  the  preparation  of  the 
skins  involves,  to  say  no  more,  the  use  of 
cutting  instruments.  And  it  is  noticeable 
that  here  the  suggestion  is  by  implication 
ascribed  to  the  Creator,  in  the  statement  that 
"  the  Lord  God  did  make  coats  of  skins  and 
clothed  them."  Simple  as  is  the  flint  knife — 
simplest  of  all  effective  instruments — the  first 
invention  of  it /or  tlie  liour  of  need  might  well 
be  ascribed  to  a  God-given  sagacity.  And  its 
invention  may  equally  well  be  traced  to  the 
origin  of  the  human  race,  inasmuch  as  all, 
even  the  rudest  tribes  of  men  in  all  ages,  have 
been  found  in  possession  of  sharp  implements 
of  flint  or  other  hard  stone.  Tiiey  occur  no 
less  among  the  relics  ot"  palseolithic  races  and 
Swiss  lake-dwellers  of  Western  Europe  than 
among  the  North  American  Indians  and  their 
predecessors  the  mound-builders,  and  in  the 
lowest  stratum  at  Hissarlik,  two  unknown 
ages  earlier  than  the  Troy  of  Homer;  and 
in  Egypt  deep  below  the  ground  in  a  well 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  79 

near  Cairo  have  been  found  flakes  of  flint 
evidently  fashioned  by  the  hand  of  man. 
With  them  enter  the  first  faint  traces  of 
human  presence  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
The  stone  age  has  but  recently  passed  away 
from  among  the  Esquimaux,  and  it  prevailed 
over  the  world  till  the  inventions  of  the  higher 
races  have  entered.  The  fact  is  suggestive,  and 
might  possibly  be  explained  as  the  result  of  the 
same  permanent  necessities  and  constant  inge- 
nuity, or  more  easily,  when  we  see  the  same 
style  of  chipping  away  the  flint  all  over  the 
world,  as  the  result  of  an  earliest,  common  in- 
heritance. Thus  there  is,  it  is  said,  a  noticealily 
close  resemblance  between  the  palaeolithic 
implements  in  the  post-glacial  terraces  of 
Trenton,  N.  J.,  and  those  of  the  gravel  beds 
of  northern  France  and  southern  England. 

But  we  are  led  to  another  still  more  remark- 
able inquiry,  that  concerning  the  early  use 
of  fire,  as  perhaps  involved  in  the  narrative. 
To  say  nothing  of  the  tilling  of  the  earth  by 
Cain,  even  though  perhaps  not  for  the  cereals 
but  for  roots  and  garden  vegetables,  as  nat- 
urally if  not  necessarily  supplemented  by  the 
use  of  fire,  yet  the  sacrifice  of  Abel,  "  the  first- 
lings of  the  flock  and  of  their  fat,"  involves, 
unless  the  offering  stands  isolated  from  all  else 
of  the  kind  in  the  Bible  and  the  history  of  the 


80         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

nations,  a  consumption  by  lire.  And  it  is 
noticeable  that  even  in  the  previous  narrative 
an  apparently  archaic  word,  properly  designa- 
ting the  "  licking  "  of  fire  occurs  in  the  phrase 
"the  flame  of  a  sword,"  ':r\r\r\  t^n^  (Gen.  iii.  24). 
The  long-matured  and  skilful  application  of 
fire  is  of  course  involved  in  the  forging  pro- 
cesses of  Tubal  Cain  at  a  later  period,  and  the 
first  distinct  mention  is  found  in  connection 
with  the  burnt  offerings  of  Noah.  'A  mo- 
ment's reflection,  while  it  shows  the  moment- 
ousness  of  the  discovery,  shows  also  the  singular 
improbability  of  that  discovery  being  made  by 
any  being  however  intelligent  anterior  to  all 
Knowledge  or  conception  of  its  uses,  and  much 
more  the  improbability  that  it  should  have  be- 
come the  common  possession  of  all  the  remotest 
races,  unless  by  some  such  community  of  in- 
heritance and  therefore  early  origin.  Yet  no 
race  on  the  earth  has  been  found  destitute  of 
it,  although  it  is  asserted  (by  Lubbock  and 
otbers)  that  some  races  have  not  the  power  to 
produce  it.  Lubbock,  after  referring  to  some 
three  alleged  exceptions,  is  constrained  to  say, 
"It  cannot  be  satisfactorily  proved  that  there 
is  at  present  or  has  been  in  historical  times  any 
race  of  men  entirely  ignorant  of  fire.  It  is  at 
least  certain  that  as  far  back  as  the  earliest 
Swiss  lake-dwellings  fire  was  well  known  in 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  81 

Evirope."'  This  is  not  all.  While  it  has  been 
common  to  admit  that  in  the  so-called  palaeo- 
lithic period  of  Europe,  fire  was  probably 
known,  but  "there  is  no  evidence  of  it,"*  it 
seems  that  this  last  statement  can  hardly  be 
made.  Indeed  a  sharp  distinction  between 
palaeolithic  and  neolithic  man  is  becoming  for 
various  reasons  more  difficult  to  maintain.  It 
will  hardly  answer  to  draw  the  line  on  the 
ground  of  progress  attained ;  for  that  begs  the 
question  at  issue. ^  The  palaeontological  test 
founded  on  the  presence  or  disappearance  of 
extinct  animals  seems  on  some  accounts  fairest. 

'   "Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  560. 

2  Winchell,  "Preadamite  Man,"  p.  415. 

3  Archibald  Geike,  though  earnestly  maintaining  a 
long  lapse  of  time  in  Britain  for  the  palceolithic  period 
("Ice  Age,"  p.  504)  and  a  sharj}  dividing  line  between 
its  relics  and  those  of  the  neolithic  age  (p.  496),  yet 
informs  us  in  his  later  work  ("Geology,"  1882,  p. 
903)  that  the  nature  or  shape  of  the  implement  can- 
not be  always  a  satisfactory  proof  of  antiquity.  "  We 
must  judge  of  it  by  the  circumstances  under  which  it  is 
found.  The  student  may  profitably  consult  Dr.  Arthur 
Mitchell's  Past  in  the  Present  for  the  warnings  it  contains 
as  to  the  danger  of  deciding  upon  the  antiquity  of  an  im- 
plement merely  from  its  rudeness."  And  Dr.  J.  W.  Daw- 
son remarks  ("Origin  of  the  World,"  1877,  p.  278)  that 
"Wilson,  Southall,  and  other  writers  have  accumulated 
so  many  examples  of  this  that  I  think  the  distinction  of 
Palaiolithic  and  Neolithic  ages  must  now  be  given  uiJ  by 
all  investigators  who  possess  ordinary  judgment." 


82         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

This  as  proposed  by  Lartet  makes  (for  France) 
the  oldest  period  of  the  cave-men  the  time  of 
the  cave-bear,  the  next  of  the  mammoth  and 
woolly  rhinoceros,  then  that  of  the  reindeer, 
and  last  of  the  aurochs.  Lubbock  so  far  agrees 
as  to  make  the  earliest  period  that  of  the  cave- 
bear,  mammoth  and  rhinoceros.*  But  at  Mas- 
sat  ashes  and  charcoal  were  found  not  only  in 
connection  with  the  bones  of  the  bear  and 
other  animals,  but  with  a  likeness  of  the 
cave-bear  himself  drawn  upon  a  stone.^  So 
at  Aurignac,  which  Lartet  regards  as  "reach- 
ing back  to  the  highest  antiquity  of  man," 
in  conjunction  with  the  bear,  mammoth,  and 
rhinoceros  were  found  marks  of  fire.^  It  has 
been  found  in  large  quantities  in  the  valley 
of  Vezere,'  which  however  may  be  later.  Con- 
nect with  these  facts  that  ancient  legend  con- 
cerning Prometheus,  which  declares  the  great- 
ness of  the  boon,  the  source,  and  the  strangeness 
of  its  procurement,  and  all  these  indications 
concur  with  the  supposition  of  its  communica- 
tion to  the  first  family.  In  the  same  direction 
lies  the  statement  of  the  Phenician  cosmogony 

•I  "Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  2. 

5  Southall,  "Recent  Origin  of  Men,"  p.  208.     Quatre- 
fages,  "Human  Species,"  p.  146. 

6  Lubbock,  lb.  p.  320. 

7  Quatrefages,  "Human  Species,"  p.  320,  145. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  83 

which  reckons  as  descendants  of  Genos  and 
Genea  (Cain  and  Caina),  three  brothers,  Light, 
Fire  and  Flame/ 

In  the  same  direction  lies  the  brief  an- 
nouncement concerning  the  occupations  of 
Cain  and  Abel,  the  one  a  cultivator  of  the 
soil,  the  other  a  raiser  of  the  small  cattle,  sheep 
and  goats  (TNV).  The  two  simplest  of  all  oc- 
cupations, our  narrative  informs  us,  began 
thus  early.  It  is  in  keeping  with  Living- 
stone's observation  after  his  long  experience 
among  the  African  tribes,that  it  is  out  of  the 
question  for  human  beings  to  maintain  life  by 
dependence  simply  on  the  unaided  products 
of  nature.  The  origin  of  these  employments, 
lies  beyond  the  verge  of  all  other  history.  The 
Sciipture  account  thoroughly  accords  with  all 
we  know  of  early  life.  The  Swiss  Lake-dwellers 
had  their  various  grains  and  domestic  animals. 
Several  writers  have  endeavored  to  show  that 
the  men  of  the  stone  age  in  France  and  Suabia 
had  their  domestic  animals,  horses  and  rein- 
deer. It  is,  perhaps,  an  open  question.  But 
it  would  seem  to  be  no  question  that  agricul- 
ture and  cattle  breeding  marked  the  earliest 
progress  in  Europe  beyond  the  life  of  hunting 
and  fishing. 

We  would  not  venture  far  in  speculating — - 
*  Lenormaut,  "Les  Origiues, "  p.  20*^. 


84         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

though  almost  compelled  to  raise  the  inquiij 
— what  utensils  are  necessarily  supposed  in 
this  early  keeping  of  goats,  as  always,  for  their 
milk.  But  we  are  reminded  at  once  how  an- 
cient and  well-nigh  universal  has  been  some 
kind  of  pottery,  however  rude.  It  abundantly 
marks  the  sites  of  "  all  ancient  habitations,"  as 
well  as  the  chief  resorts  of  the  Indian  tribes,  the 
mound-builders'  settlements,  the  Celtic  towns, 
and  the  old  Lake-dwellings.^  It  was  found 
ill  the  valley  of  IMassat  with  the  remains  of 
fire  and  of  the  cave-bear;  at  Nabrigas  where 
the  bear's  skiill-bone  was  pierced  by  an  arrow, 
and  at  Vergisson  in  connection  with  four  ex- 
tinct species  of  animals. 

Furthermore,  we  are  told  that  Cain  built  a 
city.  The  word,  by  its  oi-igin  and  frequent 
early  use,  designates  no  more  than  an  enclos- 
ure for  defensive  purposes,  a  wall  or  ditcli, 
either  or  both,  surrounding  a  dwelling  or  clus- 
ter of  dwellings.  We  may  understand  a  rude 
structure  far  simpler  and  less  elaborate  than 
the  mound-builders'  strongholds  on  the  Miami 
and  in  Northern  Ohio,  and  in  size  at  most  a 
hamlet  or  encampment  rather  than  a  modern 
town.  For  we  may  remember  that  in  early 
Judah  there  were  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  "cities,"  and  in  Canaan  thirtj'-one  ro^^al 
9  Lubbock,  "Prehistoiic  Times,"  p.  237. 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  85 

"cities,"  that  even  the  city  of  David  was  orig- 
ijially  but  a  citadel  on  Zion.  Homer's  Troy, 
at  least  the  fortified  part,  the  city  proper,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  but  a  hill  fortress  with  an 
area  scarcely  two  hundred  feet  by  three  hun- 
dred, not  half  so  large  as  the  fortified  hill- 
top of  the  old  Egyptian  miners  in  Wady  Ma- 
garah."  The  city  (TJ?)  in  Isaiah  i.  8,  is  ap- 
parently but  a  watch-tower.  We  may  therefore 
imagine  simply  an  enbankment  or  stockade, 
within  which  the  terror-stricken  criminal  en- 
deavored to  quell  his  fears  and  secure  his 
safety,  as  in  later  days  the  Pequot  chief  Sas- 
sacus  retreated  within  his  stronghold  to  shel- 
ter himself  from  the  avenger  of  blood. 

The  next  clear  indications  of  progress  that 
(»ccur  in  the  sacred  record,  are  found  in  a  re- 
markable outburst  in  a  singularly  gifted  family, 
Lamech  and  his  sons,  Jubal,  Jabal  and  Tubal 
Cain.  It  occurs  naturally  enough  after  the 
lapse  of  some  generations,  and  in  the  Cainite 
line, — the  men  of  this  world.  The  develop- 
ment is  so  surprising  that  some  have  en- 
deavored (like  Buttmann)  to  remit  it  wholly 
into  the  region  of  myths,  and  to  regard  the 
three  as  gods,  early  worshipped  by  the  He- 
brews ;  others  (as  Evvald)  would  find  three  great 
classes  into  which  the  civilization  of  that  age 
10  About  660  by  260  feet. 


86         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

was  divided;  and  Lenormant  would  regard 
them  as  ethnic  personifications  of  the  great 
human  races,  Tubal  standing  for  the  Tibareni 
and  the  Chalybes.  It  is  difficult  to  read  such 
statements  into  the  text.  But  the  progress  re- 
corded is  very  great;  it  follows  in  the  line  of 
him  who  founded  the  first  city  or  permanent 
place  of  habitation,  and  is  attended  with 
circumstances  of  luxury,  sensuality,  boastful- 
ness  and  ferocity  which  give  a  striking  air  of 
verisimilitude  to  this  brief  opening  into  the 
oldest  civilization  of  the  human  race. 

In  the  possession  of  Jabal  we  find  tents 
and  cattle, — these  last  no  longer  the  smaller 
animals,  the  sheep  and  goats  of  Abel's  time, 
but  the  larger  cattle  also,  constituting  together 
already,  as  in  later  times,  a  great  oriental  for- 
tune. The  tents  in  which  they  dwelt  to  care 
for  their  flocks  and  herds  set  before  us,  as  al- 
ready mature,  no  doubt,  the  art  of  spinning 
and  weaving  the  goats'-hair  cloth  which  from 
time  immemorial  has  formed  the  black  oriental 
tent,  and,  by  natural  inference,  of  converting 
the  wool  of  the  sheep  into  clothing.  And  the 
picture  of  life  thus  given  would  correspond  in 
good  measure  to  the  life  of  Abraham  and  Isaac 
in  after  times,  when  they  had  their  home  in 
Palestine,  rich  in  flocks  and  herds,  with  more 
or  less  settled  places  of  abode,  yet  moving 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  87 

about  with  facility  as  necessity  or  convenience 
might  require.  Historically  the  arts  of  spin- 
ning and  weaving  reach  back  beyond  all  oth- 
er records.  The  neolithic  men  of  the  Swiss 
lakes  present  us  with  cloth  for  clothing  and 
nets  for  fishing. 

Jubal  appears  as  the  ancestor  of  those  who 
handle  the  stringed  and  wind  instruments. 
And  it  is  remarkable  how  far  back  in  antiquity 
we  encounter  musical  instruments,  and  that 
too  in  great  variety.  We  cannot  find  their 
origin,  but  they  meet  us  in  the  full  stream. 
The  Assyrian  sculptures,  being  mostly  hunting 
and  battle  scenes,  give  us  more  meagre  dis- 
closures, although  we  find  the  harp  at  their 
feasts,  and  when  the  king  goes  forth  from  Susa 
to  receive  his  prisoners,  he  does  it  to  the  sound 
of  the  harp  and  the  double  pipe.  But  Egypt 
furnishes  both  the  oldest  and  most  abundant 
exhibition.  "  Paintings  on  the  tombs  of  the 
earliest  times"  '^  exhibit  their  fondness  for  in- 
strumental music,  which  blossomed  out  into  a 
singular  variety  of  instruments.  They  had 
their  drums,  their  tambourines  of  three  kinds, 
clappers,  cymbals  and  trumpets,  flutes  of  reed, 
wood,  bone  and  ivory,  single  pipes  with  three 
and  with  four  holes,  double  pipes,  and  stringed 
instruments  of  much  greater  variety  in  form 

"  Wilkinson's  "Ancient  Egyptians,"  i.  pp.  83,  126. 


88         HISTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

and  number  of  strings  than  are  in  modern  use. 
There  were  guitars  of  two  or  three  different 
shapes,  lyres  of  diverse  forms,  standing  and 
portable,  harps  of  still  greater  variety,  some 
of  them  in  shape  almost  like  the  Irish  harp, 
with  thirteen  different  numbers  of  strings 
varying  from  four  to  twenty-two.  Thus  "  the 
harp  and  the  organ,"  that  is,  the  stringed  and 
the  wind  instruments  of  music,  antedate  all 
other  history  than  that  of  the  Pentateuch. 

Among  the  far-off  tribes  of  the  Stone  Age, 
as  it  is  called,  we  find  less  of  artistic  turn  in 
any  form,  and  for  reasons  which  I  shall  dwell 
upon  more  in  the  sequel.  Bones  pierced  with 
holes  for  whistles  are  the  sole  representa- 
tives that  we  find  of  the  musical  tendency. 
The  incipient  artistic  turn  showed  itself  more 
in  other  forms — in  the  pictures  of  the  cave- 
bear,  of  the  reindeer,  of  two  reindeers  fighting, 
of  a  fish,  of  the  mammoth  "etched  upon  his 
own  ivory"  so  as  to  be  perfectly  recognizable, 
all  of  the  earliest,  rudest  times.  What  other 
arts,  implements,  and  habits  of  these  times 
are  indicated,  whether  rites  of  burial,  relig- 
ious observances  and  the  like — I  will  not  dis- 
cuss, it  not  being  essential  to  my  purpose, 
and  the  facts  as  yet  too  uncertain. 

But  at  this  point  let  me  enter  two  impor- 
tant caveats,  (1)  that  the  non-discovery  of 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  89 

certain  objects,  especially  in  scattered  caves, 
is  no  proof  that  they  did  not  exist,  and  (2) 
that  the  condition  of  things  in  these  remote 
places  is  no  safe  criterion  even  of  the  state 
of  society  from  which  they  might  have  been 
detached.  Unsettled  tribes,  and  even  distant 
colonists,  leave  behind  far  more  than  they 
carry. 

Take  a  striking  instance.  The  Plymouth 
settlers  in  1620  brought  with  them  no  means 
of  fishing,  neither  seines  nor  hooks,  and  for 
eighteen  months  they  suffered  greatly  for 
the  want  of  them."  For  three  or  four  years 
(till  March  1023  or  1624)  they  had  no  cattle, 
and  then  but  four  were  imported.  In  May 
1027,  they  had  but  one  cow  and  two  goats  for 
each  thirteen  persons;  and  the  first  recorded 
introduction  of  sheep,  five  in  number,  was  in 
1030.  Horses  must  have  been  many  years 
later.  And  most  singular  of  all,  though  glass 
windows  were  introduced  into  England  in 
1180,  yet  460  years  later  Edward  Winslow 
was  writing  to  George  Morton  in  England, 
"  Bring  paper  and  linseed  oil  for  your  win- 
dows."" Oiled  paper  to  keep  out  the  cold  of 
a  New  England  winter !  They  brought  with 
them,  ofcourse,  almost  no  jewelry,  no  paintings 

12  Young's  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,"  p.  171. 
'3  76.  p.  237. 


90         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

or  works  of  art,  no  organ  nor  instruments  of 
music — and  the  like.  Now  about  the  year 
1852  I  happened  to  be  in  Plymouth,  Mas- 
sachusetts, when  in  the  construction  of  a 
drain  or  sewer  some  bones  of  those  who  died 
in  the  first  year  of  the  settlement  were  dug 
up.  Suppose  that  the  objects  found  with 
them,  or  that  could  have  been  found  for 
many  years  afterwards,  had  been  taken  as 
a  criterion  of  the  state  of  the  arts  and  the  con- 
dition of  society  in  England  whence  they 
had  come  so  directly  across  the  ocean — how 
illogical  and  false  the  inferences. 

The  third  of  this  family  group,  Tubal 
Cain,  was  "  an  instructor  of  every  artificer 
in  brass  and  iron,"  or  as  most  modern  schol- 
ars render  it,  substantially,  a  "forger  of  all 
tools  (or  implements,)  of  brass  and  iron." 
Here  we  strike  the  origin  of  metallurgy,  es- 
pecially the  working  of  brass — or  rather 
bronze  or  copper — and  iron.  The  bronze  or 
copper  comes  first  in  the  order  of  mention, 
as  it  apj^ears  to  have  come  first  in  the  order 
of  use.  Indeed  it  is  noteworthy  that  earl}* 
researches  bring  us  very  little  of  pure  copper; 
but  the  main  supply  of  metallic  implements 
is  of  bronze,  a  compound  of  copper  and  tin. 
Copper  is  comparatively  fusible  and  malleable, 
and   is   found   in    combinations   much    more 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  91 

manageable  than  iron,  and  is  far  more 
abundant  in  the  region  of  Armenia  and  the 
neighboring  countries.  It  is  still  a  product  of 
Armenia,  being  exported  in  large  quantities, 
a  characteristic  product  of  Cyprus,  to  which 
it  gives  name,  and  is  found  in  the  region  of 
Sinai.  Almost  as  far  back  as  we  can  trace 
anything,  we  can  trace  the  mining  of  copper. 
In  the  neighborhood  of  the  copper  slag-heaps 
at  Wady  Magarah,  is  inscribed  on  the  clift* 
the  oldest  known  carved  name  of  a  monarch, 
Snefru  of  Egypt,  who  wrought  these  mines 
before  the  Great  Pyi'amid  was  built.  And 
the  oldest  description  of  the  mining  process 
is  that  graphic  picture  in  the  twenty-eighth 
chapter  of  Job — 

"  Surely  there  is  a  vein  for  silver 
And  a  place  for  gold  where  they  fine  it, 
Iron  is  taken  out  of  the  earth, 
And  brass  is  molten  out  of  the  stone,"  etc. 

So  early  was  copper  and  bronze  forged  in 
the  East  that  we  cannot  discern  the  prelim- 
inary stages.  In  this  country  we  can  trace 
apparently  the  transition  period  with  the 
old  mound  builders.  Until  recently,  copper 
was  found  in  those  ancient  works  only  in 
its  native  state,  as  it  had  been  brought  from 
the  mines  of  Lake  Superior  and  shaped  into 


92         HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

hatchets  or  other  forms  by  hammering, — the 
process  being  betrayed  by  the  lamination. 
The  art  of  fusing  it  was  supposed  not  to 
have  been  attained.  But  we  seem  of  late  to 
have  found  the  transition.  For  in  Wiscon- 
sin there  have  lately  been  discovered  certain 
copper  implements  (chisels)  which  are  de- 
clared by  practical  founders  to  have  been 
cast  in  a  mould.^*  This  stage  of  transition 
has  not  been  recognized  in  the  old  world 
—  unless  at  Hissarlik.  Schliemann  found 
there  in  the  two  strata  older  than  his  Troy, 
pins  of  copper  much  harder  than  that  of  com- 
merce, which,  it  is  conjectured,  may  owe  its 
hardness  to  a  natural  alloy  of  rhodium,  such 
as  was  ascertained  to  have  caused  a  similar 
hardness  in  the  weapons  of  the  Peruvian 
Incas  and  in  certain  weapons  discovered  at 
Lake  Superior.'^  In  what  he  considers  the 
Troy  stratum  the  metal  was  bronze.  The 
proportion  of  tin  varied  from  four  to  nearly 
nine  per  cent.  Bronze  was  one  of  the  abun- 
dant alloys  of  ancient  Cyprus.  Bronzes  are 
found  at  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  in  which  the 
proportion  of  tin  is  ten  and  eleven  per  cent, 
but  in  a  bell  fourteen — indicating  a  skilful 
adjustment.     So  in  the  bronzes  of  Mycenae 

I''  "Historical  Collections  of  Wisconsin,"  vol.  vii.,  p.  101. 
»5  Schliemann's  "Ilios,"  p.  251,  738. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  93 

a  much  larger  proportion  of  tin  occurs  in  the 
armor  than  in  the  domestic  utensils,  some  of 
which  are  almost  pure  copper.  Loftus  found 
what  he  calls  brass  ornaments  (more  likely 
bronze)  in  the  mounds  of  Erech  (Warka), 
and  at  tell  Sifr  a  singular  variety  and  quan- 
tity of  copper  articles  in  a  copper-smith's 
shop,  where  eren  the  dross  from  his  castings 
indicated  his  forge  near  at  hand.  The  date 
was  pronounced  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  to 
be  about  1500  b.  c.  Bronze  abounds  in 
Egypt  from  the  earliest  times,  a  cast  cylin- 
der bearing  the  name  of  Pepi  of  the  sixth  dy- 
nasty. This  would  carry  us  still  further  back 
— according  to  Mariette  2200  years,  accord- 
ing to  Brugsch  1700,  and  according  to  Birch 
more  than  500.  In  other  words,  however 
far  back  of  the  confines  of  all  recorded  history 
except  this  Pentateuch  we  go,  we  encounter 
bronze  coming  down  from  beyond  in  compar 
ative  abundance  as  one  of  the  very  earliest 
forms  of  metallurgy,  and  in  the  very  regions 
to  which  it  is  assigned,  and  where  it  is  still 
to  be  found.  But  the  tin  with  which  it  is  al- 
loyed furnishes  at  the  same  time  indications 
of  an  enterprise  and  traffic  quite  notewor- 
thy, inasmuch  as  the  nearest  known  points  of 
its  production  are  Burmah  in  Asia,  Bohemia, 
Sardinia,  Siberia  and  Spain  in  Europe.     Capt. 


94         HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

Burton  however,  is  said  to  have  found  it  in 
Midian. 

Of  iron,  too,  Tubal  Cain  was  the  forger. 
Here  again  is  a  congruity  to  known  circum- 
stances. Iron  is  one  of  the  metals  of  Armenia. 
There  are  mines  of  it  in  Kurdistan, — the 
mountains  of  Tyari,  and  the  valley  of  Ber- 
wari.  But  its  use  among  the  nations  genei-- 
ally  was  later  and  scantier  than  that  of  copper 
and  bronze.  There  is  no  trace  of  it  in  pre- 
historic Troy  and  Mycenae ;  nor  in  Cyprus. 
Among  the  Accadians  it  is  said  to  have  been 
a  precious  metal.  Og,  king  of  Bashan,  had 
his  bed  of  iron.  It  was  the  latest  metal  of 
prehistoric  man  in  Europe.  Only  in  the  re- 
gion of  Asia  referred  to  does  it  appear  early 
to  any  extent.  At  Nimroud  in  one  room 
Layard  found  scale  armor  of  iron,  almost  de- 
composed with  rust,  but  enough  left  to  fill 
two  or  three  baskets.  A  perfect  helmet  was 
also  found,  and  other  armor  of  iron  and  of 
copper,  and  iron  inlaid  with  copper, — helmets 
of  various  shapes,  that  fell  to  pieces  as  soon 
as  exposed.  He  also  found  iron  swords,  dag- 
gers, shields,  spear  and  arrow  heads,  the  head 
of  a  hatchet,  and  specimens  of  bronze  cast 
over  iron.  These  bring  us  nearest  in  place  if 
not  in  time  to  Tubal  Cain.  For  except  in  one 
case,  neither  iron  nor  steel  is  actually  met  with 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  95 

among  the  antiquities  of  Egypt;  although 
steel  is  thought  to  be  clearly  delineated  in  the 
pictures.  That  one  exception  is  quite  remark- 
able. It  was  communicated  to  me  by  Dr. 
Grant  Bey  of  Cairo,  first  orally,  then  in  writ- 
ing, as  follows:  "In  1837  Mr.  Hill,  in  the 
employ  of  Col.  A^yse,  discovered  a  fragment 
of  iron  in  an  inner  point  near  the  mouth  of 
the  southern  air  channel  of  the  great  pyramid. 
It  was  sent  to  the  British  Museum  with  three 
certificates  signed  by  Hill,  Perring,  Andrews 
and  Mash,  to  the  effect  that  the  iron  had  been 
left  in  the  point  between  two  stones  during 
the  building  of  the  pyramid,  and  could  not 
have  been  inserted  afterward.  Col.  Vyse 
also  thought  he  perceived  the  remains  of  an 
iron  fastening  in  the  chamber  containing 
the  sideboard"  in  the  gi-eat  temple  of  Abou 
Simbel." 

But  this  remarkable  family  had  other  ac- 
complishments. For  from  the  mouth  of  La- 
mech  we  hear  the  earliest  poetry  in  the  world's 
history,  the  triple  Semitic  distich  in  which  he 

'8  Mr.  Birch,  in  the  last  edition  of  Wilkinson,  mentions 
a  few  other  small  objects  of  iron,  of  which  the  age  is  moi-e 
undefined:  a  falchion  blade  under  a  sphinx  at  Karnac,  the 
blade  of  an  adze,  and  iron  wires  sustaining  the  core  of  a 
broken  bronze  statue — the  latter  of  the  age  of  the  Rames- 
sids.     (Vol.  ii.  p.  251.) 


96         HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

commemorates  his  murderous  exploit  and  his 
ferocious  spirit  to  his  two  wives. 

"Adah  and  Zillah,  hear  my  voice, 
Wives  of  Lamech,  listen  to  my  speech: 
For  I  have  slain  a  man  for  my  wound, 
And  a  young  man  for  my  hurt: 
If  Cain  shall  be  avenged  seven-fold, 
Truly  Lamech  seventy  and  seven-fold." 

It  has  been  conjectured  by  many  to  have 
been  prompted  by  his  son's  invention  of  me- 
tallic weapons;  and  as  it  was  a  sword-song,  so 
was  it  a  blood-song,  an  utterance  of  "  titanic 
insolence  "  and  ferocity.  It  well  illustrates  how 
polygamy  and  cruelty,  lust  and  fierceness  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  how  the  antediluvian 
chivalry  that  could  name  its  women,  "Shade" 
and  "  Beauty"  and  "  Pleasantness,"  and  sing  to 
them  poetic  strains,  could  summon  them  to 
witness  its  ruthless  revenge.  In  it  lay  already 
the  expression  of  the  spirit  that  soon  filled  the 
world  with  violence,  and  called  imperatively 
for  that  later  edict  of  God,  "  Whoso  sheddeth 
man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 
Its  temper  suggests  the  later  epic  hero,  "acer, 
impiger,  iracundus,"  and  the  awful  butchery, 
which,  when  one  reflects  for  a  moment,  is  seen 
to  reign  through  even  so  famous  a  poem  as 
the  Iliad.  In  its  outer  form  this  is  the  sim- 
plest of  poetry.      For  the  poetic  form    may 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  97 

consist  in  a  balancing  of  movement,  which 
is  measure;  of  sound,  which  is  rhyme  and 
sometimes  also  alliteration;  or  a  balancing 
of  thoughts  antithetically,  synthetically  or 
synonymously,  as  here.  Since  poetry,  too, 
antedates  all  history,  since  it  stands  allied  to 
music,  and  so  often,  as  in  the  Egyptian  song 
of  the  Pentaur,  it  is  the  voicing  of  daring 
personal  exploits,  so  here,  in  connection  with 
this  simplest  fragment,  we  have  all  the  condi- 
tions of  historic  verisimilitude  for  the  origin 
of  this  incipient  Odyssey.  Here  ends  the 
catalogue  of  antediluvian  art  with  a  note- 
worthy silence.  Not  a  word  of  painting, 
which  had  practically  no  existence  in  Moses' 
day,"  nor  of  sculpture,  nor  of  architecture,  or 
any  of  the  sights  that  would  have  impressed 
the  senses  of  a  dweller  in  Babylon  or  Nineveh. 

17  "We  may  say  it  is  only  by  some  abuse  of  terms  that 
we  cau  speak  of  Eijyptian  painting  at  all.  No  people  have 
spread  more  color  upon  stone  and  wood  than  the  Egyp- 
tians, none  have  had  a  more  true  instinct  for  color  har- 
monj';  but  yet  they  never  attempted  to  express  by  the 
gradation  of  tone,  by  the  juxtaposition  or  superposition 
of  tints,  the  real  aspects  of  the  surfaces  which  present 
themselves  to  our  eyes,  aspects  which  are  unceasingly 
modified  by  the  amount  of  light  or  shadow,  by  distance 
and  the  state  of  the  atmosphere.  They  used  not  the  least 
glimmering  of  what  we  call  chiaroscuro  or  of  aerial  per- 
spective." Perrot  and  Chipiez,  "Hist,  of  Art  in  Ancient 
E^'ypt,"  ii.  p.  331. 


98         HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

And  from  this  early  scene  of  worldly  devel- 
opment, but  of  profligacy  and  violence,  which 
explains  so  much  of  subsequent  history,  we 
turn  with  pleasure  to  that  revival  in  the  house 
of  Seth  which  apparently  furnishes  the  clue  to 
the  "  sons  of  God  "  before  the  flood. 

The  next  stage  of  art  indicated  in  the  his- 
tory is  in  many  ways  remarkable.  It  is  made 
supposable  only  by  the  condition  of  things  al- 
ready described,  the  progress  previously  re- 
corded. I  refer  to  the  construction  of  the  ark. 
Now,  the  essential  facts  concerning  the  del- 
uge and  the  rescue  of  one  pious  family  from 
destruction  I  take  it  to  be  settled,  if  any  thing 
historical  or  traditional  caYi  be  settled,  by  the 
ioint  testimony  of  the  human  race.  They  seem 
to  have  been  branded  into  the  memory  of  the 
human  family  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  I  will 
not  weary  you  with  even  a  summary  recital 
of  this  traditional  knowledge,  which  has  been 
so  often  set  in  array,  and  which  comes  from  Eu- 
rope, Asia,  Africa,  America,  and  the  islands  of 
the  ocean."  It  is  inexplicable,  except  on  two 
suppositions,  the  substantial  unity  of  these 
races,  with  this  one  great  central  knowledge, 
so  far  at  least  as  to  have  descended  from  one 
contemporaneous  stock,  and  the  stupendous  na- 

'«  A  good  survey  of  them  is  found  in  Delitzsch's 
Genesis. 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  '  99 

ture  of  the  historic  fact  which  in  all  their  wan- 
derings and  their  elevation  or  degradation  they 
never  could  shake  ofi'from  their  recollection.  I 
may  add  a  third  noticeable  consideration,  that 
when  we  take  all  these  various  traditions  and 
sift  from  them  their  palpable  absurdities  and 
their  local  colorings,  we  can  frame  from  them 
all  a  narrative  that  lies  side  by  side  with 
this  sober  and  consistent  Bible  history.  'Hie 
substance  of  the  universal  story,  when  thus 
sifted,  is  this:  a  wicked  world  destroyed  by  a 
flood  for  its  wickedness;  a  righteous  man  and 
Ihs  family,  together  with  pairs  of  animals,  pre- 
served in  an  ark;  the  ark  resting  on  a  moun- 
tain; birds  sent  out  to  ascertain  the  condition 
of  the  earth ;  an  altar  built  and  sacrifices  of- 
fered. These  details  are  sometimes  much 
abridged,  and  as  often  greatly  expanded.  The 
birds  in  the  Chaldean  legend  of  Berosus  go 
three  times.  In  some  accounts  the  dove, 
the  vulture  and  the  raven  figure ;  in  Michuacan 
their  place  is  taken  by  the  raven  and  the  hum- 
ming-bird. The  vedas  associate  with  Mann 
seven  other  holy  sages,  and  the  traditions  even 
of  the  Fiji  Islands  give  the  number  of  the 
saved  as  eight.  Not  to  dwell  on  these  and 
other  traits  of  resemblance  or  difference,  the 
point  I  have  in  view  is  the  construction  of  the 
ark — a  A'ery  remarkable  record.     It  supposes 


100       HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

a  skill  and  resources  which  can  be  accounted 
for  only  by  the  facts  already  related,  this 
eai'ly  and  extraordinary  development  handed 
down  from  father  to  son,  and  increasing  all  the 
more  rapidly  by  reason  of  longevity,  till  Noah 
could  carry  out  effectively  the  Divine  instruc- 
tions. See,  however,  the  sobriety  and  verisi- 
militude of  the  narrative,  which,  granting  the 
fundamental  fact,  in  all  its  details  of  time  and 
circumstance  conforms  to  the  exigencies,  to  an 
extent  which  of  itself  might  almost  fill  the 
hour  of  this  lecture.  It  assigns  indeed  a  long 
time  of  expectation  and  of  preparation,  under- 
stood by  one  great  body  of  commentators  to 
be  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  of  Gen- 
esis vi.  It  was  an  enormous  undertaking, 
demanding  all  the  cutting  instruments  and 
metallic  implements  already  invented.  Ob- 
serve the  material,  as  congruous  to  the  region 
as  was  the  shittim  or  acacia  wood  of  the  tab- 
ernacle to  the  region  of  Sinai.  The  "gopher" 
wood  of  the  ark  is  admitted  to  be  pitch- wood, 
therefore  light  and  comparatively  easy  of 
working.  Lexicographers,  from  the  similarity 
of  the  consonant  elements,  incline  to  suggest 
specifically  the  cypress.  Now  the  cypress 
abounds  throughout  Asia  Minor,  and  Fresh- 
field"  mentions  the  cypress  and  the  fir  as  con- 
's Freshfield's  "Caucasus,"  pp.  230,  253,  254,  275,  322. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  101 

stituting  a  prominent  part  of  the  forests  far 
up  in  the  mountains  of  Caucasus.  It  grows 
to  the  height  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet. 
Nothing  could  bemore  suitable.  The  pine  also 
abounds  in  these  regions.  The  immense  pine 
forests  on  the  sources  of  the  Rion  or  Phasis 
are  among  the  few  distinct  statements  of 
Freshfield;  while  Thielmann  mentions  the 
pines  that  half  conceal  the  ravines  of  the  Kura 
on  the  eastern  slope,  and  the  timber  that  is 
floated  down  the  Koissu  river  to  the  Caspian 
sea.  The  cypress  or  the  pine  would  have  fur- 
nished the  pitch  for  the  caulking;  or  if  we 
suppose  the  pitch  to  be  bitumen — as  it  prob- 
ably was  not — we  are  reminded  of  the  exten- 
sive petroleum  works  now  carried  on  at  Buku 
on  the  Caspian,  and  of  the  bitumen  springs 
still  flowing  at  Is  on  the  Euphrates.  And  the 
olive  tree  of  which  the  dove  brought  a  fresh- 
plucked  leaf,  grows  also  in  Armenia,  and  is 
found  on  the  south  side  of  Mount  Ararat  at 
its  foot.  But  the  most  remarkable,  and  equally 
consistent  thing,  is  the  architecture  of  the 
building;  a  ship  with  three  successive  cabins 
divided  into  compartments  and  "  light  to  [the 
distance  of]  a  cubit  above  "  or  from  above,  which 
permits  us  to  conceive  of  a  row  of  openings 
under  the  eaves,  high  above  the  range  of  the 
waters,  for  light  and  ventilation.     The  ark  is 


102        HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

not  lauuclied,  observe,  but  built  on  dry  land — 
possibly  on  some  height  where  the  pine  or  cy- 
press grew,  and  the  waters  may  have  "risen 
fifteen  cubits  "  before  it  floated — whence  it  is 
gradually  raised  and  "  lifted,"  till  it  "  walked 
(n^n)  on  the  face  of  the  waters."  But  let  us 
observe  more  carefully  its  remarkable  dimen- 
sions. For  while  the  Chaldean  legend  of 
Berosus  gives  us  the  impossible  length  of  five 
furlongs  and  the  breadth  of  two,  and  even  ac- 
cording to  the  Babylonian  tablet,  if  we  may 
trust  the  figures,  long  given  as  doubtful,  the 
size  would  be — reckoning  the  Egyptian  cubit 
of  20.7  inches^"— 1035  in  length  and  103^  feet 
each  in  breadth  and  height.  The  last  of  these 
dimensions — to  say  nothing  of  the  length — 
shows  the  wildness  of  the  statement.  But  by 
the  same  standard  the  dimensions  given  in 
the  Pentateuch  would  be  517  feet  in  length 
by  8(3^  width  and  51f  in  height.  Now  the 
largest  vessel  of  modern  times,  built  by  the 
nation  that  is  mistress  of  the  seas,  after  the 
most  approved  standard  of  naval  architecture, 
was  the  Great  Eastern.  The  interval  of  time 
between  that  first  recorded  vessel  and  this  of 
the  present  generation  is  at  least  more  than 

20  Such  is  the  result  of  measurements  according  to  Gen. 
Sii-  Henry  James.  Notes  on  the  "Great  Pyramid,"  pp.  9 
seq. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  103 

4000  years.  But  we  reach  this  extraordinary 
result,  that 'the  width  of  the  ark  was  just  3^ 
feet  more  than  that  of  the  Great  Eastern,  and 
its  height  6^  feet  less — while  its  length,  being 
162  feet  less,  would  tell  yet  further  for  its 
strength  and  safety  as  a  seaworthy  craft. 

The  manufacture  of  wine  is  the  next  recorded 
fact  of  progress.  This  again  is  far  the  oldest 
mention  of  a  process,  that  of  making  and  us- 
ing fermented  drinks,  which  is  nearly  if  not 
absolutely  universal.  And  inasmuch  as  Noah 
the  husbandman  "planted  a  vineyard,"  the  ex- 
tent and  plan  of  the  planting  would  render  it 
pi'obable  that  the  practice  was  older  than  Noah. 
It  is,  however,  not  every  region  of  the  earth 
that  offers  the  vine  for  that  purpose.  A  great 
variet}^  of  fermented  drinks  have  existed,  such 
as  at  least  seven  kinds  of  beer,  made  from 
malt,  maize,  millet,  milk,  cava,  rice,  rye,  and 
several  kinds  of  wine,  as  they  are  called,  made 
from  the  apple,  pear,  sugar  cane,  from  the 
agave  in  a  large  part  of  Asia,  and  from  the 
palm  far  more  extensively  than  from  the 
vine,  as  in  Chili,  India,  the  Pacific  Isles  and 
all  of  Africa.  But  in  Armenia  none  of  thes<- 
resorts  were  called  for.  Its  fertile  soil,  abound- 
ing in  other  fruits,  yields  an  abundant  supply 
of  grapes.'^^     So  also  does  the  whole  neighbor- 

"1  Cbesney,  "Eviphrates  and  Tigris,"  i.  p.  97. 


104      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

ing  region  of  Georgia,  and  Thielmann  found 
excellent  wine  among  the  valleys  of  the  Can- 
casns.^^  The  earliest  record  of  the  wine  man- 
nfacture  thus  refers  it  to  its  legitimate  sur- 
roundings. The  wine  of  Armenia  and  the 
neighboring  regions  is  said  to  be  still  as  un- 
fortunate in  its  influences  as  in  the  days  of 
Noah. 

The  most  noteworthy  account  of  any  early 
architectural  enterprise  is  found  in  the  tower 
of  Babel.  This  again  is  localized  in  its  appropri- 
ate place,  the  region  of  Shinar  or  Babylonia. 
There  seems  to  be  in  the  writer's  mind  a  clear 
reminiscence  of  Egypt,  when  he  speaks  of  sub- 
stitutes for  "  stone  "  and  "  mortar."  The  im- 
mense structures  of  Egypt  were  of  limestone 
and  sandstone,  joined  by  a  mortar  that  has 
not  lost  its  binding  power  with  the  lapse  of 
ages.  But  had  the  waiter  implied  a  build- 
ing of  kiln-burnt  bricks  in  Egypt,  he  would 
have  intimated  that  of  which  no  trace  is  to 
be  found  in  Egypt  till  Roman  times.  There 
are  indeed  a  few  specimens  of  such  ancient 
brick  in  Egypt,  but  so  few  that  for  a  long 
time  their  existence  was  positively  denied. 
The  old  Egyptian  bricks  are  all  of  sun-dried 
clay  mixed  with  straw.  Nor  is  such  a  cement 
as  the  sacred  writer  ascribes  to  this  tower  to 
22  "Caucasus,"  i.  pp.  88,  234. 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  105 

be  found  in  Egypt,  nor,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
in  any  region  but  one."'  But  in  this  region 
of  Babylonia  we  meet  all  the  circumstances. 
In  the  fountains  at  Kerkuk,  Apcheron  and 
other  places,  one  just  outside  the  walls  at 
Nimroud,  are  abundant  supplies  of  bitu- 
men,^* which,  Avhen  used  as  a  cement,  some- 
times becomes  harder  than  the  bricks  it  binds. 
Here  too  has  come  down  the  use  of  bricks 
"  burnt  to  a  burning,"  (Hebrew),  so  hard 
that  thousands  of  them  show  the  name  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  as  distinct  as  if  burnt  yes- 
terday. Here  also  is  that  remarkable  tower, 
Birs  Nimroud,  rebuilt  by  Nebuchadnezzar  on 
the  site  of  a  more  ancient  unfinished  building 
supposed  to  be  the  temple  of  Belus,  and  be- 
lieved by  some  (e.  ^.,  Schrader)  to  stand  on  the 
spot  where  Babel  was  begun.  But  whatever 
its  history,  the  ruin,  Birs  Nimroud,  composed 
so  largely  of  burnt  brick  laid  in  bitumen,  com- 
memorates the  mode  of  construction  peculiar 
to  Babylonia.  Indeed  we  can  ascend  ahnost 
to  the  date  of  this  tower  of  Babel.  For  we 
have  but  to  cross  the  Euphrates  to  the  ruins 
of  Mugheir — Ur  of  the  Chaldees — to  find  in 
the    basement    of   its    temple    this    combina- 

^  At  "Warka  (Erech)  a  partial  use  of  bitumem  was  made 
with  sun-dried  bricks. 

*•  Layard,  "Babylon  and  Nineveh,"  p.  202. 


106       HISTORY  IN-   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

tiou  in  its  most  primitive  form.  "The  burnt 
bricks  are  of  a  small  size  and  inferior  qual- 
ity, laid  in  bitumen,  facing  a  solid  mass  of 
sun-dried  brick  and  forming  a  solid  wall  out- 
side of  it,  ten  feet  in  thickness.  Writing  of  an 
antique  cast  appears  on  it,  and  the  supposed 
date  is  2300  b.  c,  a  little  earlier  than  the  time 
commonly  assigned  to  the  building  of  the  tower 
of  Babel. « 

We  gain  no  further  information  or  intima- 
tion of  the  advances  in  art,  or  in  the  art  of 
living,  till  we  reach,  by  a  long  stride,  the 
time  of  Abraham,  although  this  is  more  than 
a  thousand  years  anterior  to  any  other  authen- 
tic history.  In  his  biography  all  is  quite  gen- 
eral till  we  find  him  in  Egypt.  Still  as  he 
comes  from  Haran,  but  yet  more  remarkably 
in  Egypt  and  again  in  Palestine,  we  light  ab- 
ruptly upon  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery, 
first  in  written  history.  He  returned  from 
Egypt  with  man-servants  and  maid-servants, 
and  was  afterwards  able  from  his  own  retainers 
to  equip  a  band  of  thi-ee  hundred  and  eighteen 
armed  men.  We  plunge  here  into  the  midst  of 
that  institution  that  has  so  filled  the  history  of 
Africa.  What  advances,  so-called,  in  the  con- 
dition of  society  are  involved  in  this  fact,  can 
be  best  understood  from  the  monuments  of 
25  Smith's  "Dictionary  of  the  Bible,"  i.  p.  222. 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  107 

Egypt,  which  exhibit  such  a  remarkable  and 
complicated  state  of  civilization  as  nothing 
else  could  have  satisfactorily  demonstrated. 
The  Theban  paintings  show  us  slaves,  both 
white  and  black,  in  numbers,  the  latter  even 
holding  the  dish  with  hand  reversed,  as  so  oft- 
en at  the  present  day.-''  They  were  employed 
within  doors  and  without,  in  every  mode  of 
ministry  to  the  grandeur  and  luxury  of  their 
masters.  The  pyramids  bear  perpetual  witness 
that  enforced  labor  existed  in  Egypt  long  be- 
fore the  time  of  Abraham,  while  the  old  Ac- 
cadian  code  of  Babylonia  even  legislated  on 
the  treatment  of  slaves.-'  So  also  the  institu- 
tion of  the  harem,  largely  filled  with  foreign 
women,  in  accordance  with  the  narrative  of 
Sarah,  was  early  in  full  operation  in  Egypt.^" 
But  of  the  early  use  of  that  animal  so  indis- 
pensable in  Egypt,  the  camel — which  was  one 
of  Pharaoh's  presents  to  Abraham,  but  neither 
then  nor  later  was  delineated  on  the  monu- 
ments,— we  should  know  nothing  otherwise 
than  in  this  history,  but  for  the  corroborative 
bones  which  Hekekian  Bey  found  in  his  ex- 
cavations in  the  delta.-'  And  the  remarkable 
absence  of  this  animal  from  all  delineations 

26  Wilkinson,  "Ancient Egyptians,"  i.  p.  141. 

27  Lenormant,  "Chaldean  Magic,"  p.  383. 

28  Wilkinson,  ii.  p.  224. 

28  Lyell's  "Antiquity  of  Man,"  p.  36. 


108      HISTORY  IN   THE  PENTATEUCH. 

on  the  monuments  is  possibly  to  be  explained 
from  their  association  with  the  afterwards 
hated  Hyksos,  who  may  have  brought  them 
from  Asia,  where  their  name  originated,  and 
who  were  probably  in  power  in  Abraham's  time. 
It  was  when  the  patriarch  went  up  out  of 
Egypt,  that  for  the  first  time  we  read  of  a 
man's  being  "  rich  in  silver  and  gold,"  as  he 
was.  In  no  other  country  do  we  so  early  find 
evidence  of  gold  in  such  abundance,  and  of 
such  skill  in  its  manufacture.  The  gold  found 
in  Assyria  and  Babylonia  is  later  in  date  and 
less  in  amount.  Small  and  scanty  gold  and 
silver  ornaments  occur  at  Mughier  and  Warka 
in  Chaldea.  The  gold  of  Cyprus  is  still  later. 
The  treasures  at  Troy  were  of  the  Homeric 
city,  as  is  supposed,  the  previous  strata  yield- 
ing to  Schliemann  but  three  primitive  gold 
rings,  an  electrum  brooch,  and  no  silver,  and 
the  lowest  stratum  only  one  small  silver  brooch 
and  one  gilt  copper  knife.  But  Egypt  seems 
to  have  abounded  in  gold  from  the  earliest 
times,  earlier  perhaps  than  in  silver.  The  gold 
mines  of  Ethiopia  have  within  a  few  years  been 
brought  to  light  in  the  Bisharee  desert,  eight- 
een days'  journey  south-east  of  Kom  Ombos 
on  the  Nile.  Here  are  deep  excavations  in 
the  quartz  rock,  and  ruins  of  miners'  huts 
which,  however,  may  date  only  from  the  time 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  109 

of  the  Caliphs.  But  no  traveller  up  the  Nile 
will  have  failed  to  see  in  the  tombs  of  the 
twelfth  dynasty  at  Beni  Hassan — where  the 
fluted  Doric  columns  antedate  by  one  or  two 
thousand  years  those  of  Greece — the  picture 
of  the  whole  process  of  washing  the  ore,  fusing 
the  metal  with  the  help  of  the  blow-pipe,  mak- 
ing it  into  ornaments,  weighing  it  in  scales 
peculiar  to  this  use,  together  with  the  various 
operations  of  the  goldsmith.  But  this,  though 
older  far  than  the  Exodus,  is  not  the  earliest 
indication.  "The  same  mode  of  washing  and 
working  it  is  figured  on  monuments  of  the 
fourth  dynasty,"^"  and  ]\Ir.  Birch  informs  vis, 
possibly  in  too  sweeping  terms,  that  the 
nobles  of  that  dynasty  had  each  his  own 
gold-worker  as  well  as  glass-blower,  potter, 
tailor,  baker  and  butler,  his  dancer,  harpist 
and  singer."  Any  one  who  has  seen  but  a 
part  of  the  Egyptian  jewelry  that  is  scat- 
tered in  the  museums  of  the  world,  and 
especially  the  superb  collection  in  the  Bou- 
lak  Museum,  largely  from  the  tomb  of 
queen  Ah-hotep,  the  mother  of  Ahmes,  will 
need  no  commendation  of  the  Egyptian  jewel- 
er's skill,  even  to  the  art  of  imitating  the  em- 
erald,   amethyst   and    lapis    lazuli    in    glass. 

30  Wilkinson,  ii.  p.  139. 

■"  Birch,  "History  of  Egypt,"  p.  45. 


110       mSTORY  IN    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

Nefert  of  Snefru's  time  wears  her  necklace  of 
rubies  and  emeralds.  And  the  delicate  cut- 
ting of  hard  stones,  and  even  the  cutting 
upon  a  glass  bead  the  name  of  Amun-m-het 
of  the  12th  (or  18th)  dynasty,  explain  where 
the  Hebrews  could  have  learned  the  art  of  en- 
graving the  twelve  precious  stones  of  the  High 
Priest's  breast-plate  with  the  names  of  the 
tribes  of  Israel.'^  The  ear-rings  and  bracelets 
sent  to  the  bride  of  Isaac  are  the  oldest  writ- 
ten mention  of  the  practice  that  is  older  than 
all  other  history,  as  is  proved  by  the  second 
stratum  of  Hissarlik  and  the  sculptures  and 
relics  of  Nineveh,  and  older  even  than  this 
most  ancient  record,  as  is  now  known  from 
the  monuments  of  Egypt. 

Here  too  we  find  the  earliest  mention  of 
money  transactions,  and  of  their  method. 
For  Abimelech  pays  Abraham  a  thousand  of 
silver'^  —  a  transaction    more    distinctly    ex- 

32  Exodus  xxviii.  15-21.  "Under  the  first  Theban  em- 
pire the  Egyptians  practiced  the  cutting  of  amethysts, 
cornelians,  garnets,  jasper,  lapis  lazuli,  green  and  white 
feld-spar,  obsidian,  serpentine,  steatite,  rock  crystal,  red 
quartz,  sardonyx,  etc.  We  do  not  know  whether  these 
early  workmen  employed  the  lapidary's  wheel,  but  we  may 
safely  say  that  they  produced  some  of  the  finest  works  of 
the  kind  which  are  known  to  us."  "History  of  Art,  in 
Ancient  Egypt,"  Perrot  and  Chipiez.  London,  1883,  ii. 
p.  288. 

33  Gen.  XX.  16,  xxiii.  16. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  Ill 

plained  subsequently,  when  Abraham  buys 
the  field  and  cave  of  Machpelah  for  four  hun- 
dred shekels  of  silver,  which,  it  is  added,  "he 
weighed  to  Ephron,  current  money  with  the 
merchant."  These  transactions  bring  out  tliree 
points;  (1)  that  in  ancient  times  silver  appears 
to  have  been  the  money  metal,  gold  being  re- 
served more  for  ornament;  (2)  that  for  a  long- 
period  still  money  was  not  coined  and  stamped, 
but  weighed — the  Lydians  being  among  the 
first  to  use  coin,  and  that  perhaps  a  thousand 
years  afterward;  (3)  that  even  then  the  mer- 
chant, ("irio)  the  travelling  tradesman  was  at  his 
business  of  exchange.  Later,  in  the  history 
of  Joseph,  we  encounter  a  whole  caravan  of 
traders  on  their  way  to  Egypt  with  various 
commodities  there  in  demand — spicery,  balm 
and  myrrh,  to  which  they  add  on  the  journey 
the  youthful  slave.  Of  these  commodities,  the 
first  two,  the  "•"!)>;  and  the  riN3J,  Ebers  thinks 
lie  has  found  the  very  names  in  the  Egyptian 
tal  and  nel-paf*  in  close  proximity,  in  the  la- 
boratory at  Edfu. 

The  business-like  method  of  Abraham  in  his 
traffic  conforms  to  the  careful  reckonings  so 
abundant  in  Egypt,  and  to  the  existence  of  a 
hundred  Chaldean  tablets  filled  with  business 

34  Ebers,  "  .ffigypten  und  die  Biicher  Moses,"  p.  290. 


112       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Contracts,  both  before  and  after  the  time  of 
Abraham.'^ 

To  the  same  volume  we  are  indebted  for 
our  oldest  written  knowledge  of  the  contrast 
between  the  elaborate  civilization  of  the  Nile, 
with  its  butlers  and  bakers  and  feastings,  its 
irrigation,  its  grain  trade,  its  leavened  bread, 
its  fine  linen  and  dyed  cloths,  its  embalming 
of  the  dead,  its  defensive  strongholds  and 
chariots  and  armies,  on  the  one  hand;  and  the 
simpler  life,  partly  tent-life  of  Palestine,  with 
its  unleavened  bread,  its  wells,  pastures  and 
flocks,  its  earthen  furnaces,  its  skin  bottles, 
its  donkeys  for  burdens,  its  warlike  mountain 
tribes  and  its  degraded  wickedness  by  the 
Dead  Sea;  and  also  the  intermediate  civiliza- 
tion of  rural  Mesopotamia,  where  the  camel 
and  the  kine  predominated  in  the  flocks  and 
herds,  where  though  town  life  prevailed,  the 
daughter  repaired  to  the  well  with  the  pitcher 
on  her  shoulder,  where  there  were  teraphim, 
and  labor-wages,  and  man-iage  contracts  and 
wedding  feasts,  where  the  bride  set  forth  with 
her  household  stuff,  and  the  family  were  ac- 
customed to  "  send  her  away  with  songs,  with 
tabret  and  with  harp." 

So  dependent  indeed  have  we  been  upon 
these  ancient  records  for  all  that  is  consistent 
35  Tompkins,  "Times  of  Abraham,"  p.  36. 


THE    EARLY  ARTS.  113 

and  coherent  in  our  notions  of  this  earlier  state 
of  the  race,  that  the  mere  omission  of  any  cir- 
cumstance in  this  narrative  has  left  a  blank 
in  history,  ordinarily  not  to  be  supplied.  It 
is  a  noticeable  illustration  that  glass,  whether 
i'rom  the  difficulty  of  its  manufacture  or  its 
extreme  fragility,  or  from  not  belonging  to 
their  condition  of  life  in  Egypt  or  perhaps 
from  being  of  far  less  utility  than  the  stronger 
and  cheaper  pottery,  seems  not  to  have  found 
its  way  among  the  Hebrews,  and  is  never 
mentioned  in  these  old  historic  books,  nor 
found  in  the  ruins  of  Palestine.  And  per- 
haps the  simple  omission  was  the  occasion  of 
the  belief  prevalent  till  recently,  that  glass 
was  unknown,  until  it  was  accidentally  dis- 
covered by  some  travelling  Phenicians.  I 
remember  two  otherwise  intelligent  Scotch 
clergymen  in  Rome,  who  still  advocated  this 
exploded  notion,  one  of  whom  concluded  his  ar- 
gument b}'  saying,  "You'll  find  no  glass  about 
Solomon's  temple."  And  yet  not  only  are  ob- 
jects of  glass  somewhat  common  among  Egyp- 
tian relics,  but  the  process  of  its  manufacture 
into  bottles  is  delineated  in  the  tombs  of 
lieni  Hassan,  and  it  is  admitted  to  have  been 
older  than  the  great  Pyramid;  while  such 
Avas  the  skill  displayed  in  its  manufacture, 
tliat  not  only  was  it  made  into  artificial  pre- 


114       HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

cious  stones,  but  figures  were  wrought  into 
glass  in  such  wise  that  the  pattern  of  the 
surface  passed  in  right  lines  through  the  sub- 
stance, and  often  so  minutely  exact  that  it 
could  be  made  out  only  by  the  use  of  a  lens. 

And  thus  it  is  that  many  a  hiatus  in  our 
knowledge  comes  from  the  reserve  of  this  an- 
cient book.  And  while  many  a  perplexity  is 
cleared  up  by  its  solitary  voice,  many  others 
remain  unsolved  for  want  of  those  few  words, 
or  it  may  be  the  one  word,  that  it  does  not 
speak.  Vainly  do  we  sometimes  wish,  "  O 
that  the  word  had  been  spoken."  What  light 
it  might  so  easily  have  cast  on  a  multitude  of 
now  difficult  if  not  insoluble  problems.  For 
we  might  address  that  ancient  author  not 
with  possible  guesses  once  put  to  an  exhumed 
and  shrivelled  corpse,  but  to  a  once  seen  and 
living  witness, 

' '  And  hast  thou  walked  about — how  strange  a  story — 
In  Thebes' s  streets  three  thousand  years  ago, 

When  the  Memnonium  was  in  all  its  glory 
And  time  had  not  begun  to  overthrow 

Those  temples,  palaces  and  piles  stupendous  ?  " 

But  though  that  witness  must  have  been 
an  attendant  at  the  dazzling  court  of  the 
great  Rameses,  no  less  than  of  the  infatuated 
Menephtha,  the  Sphinx  itself  could  not  be 
more   reticent   of  that   mighty  but   boastful 


THE    EARLY   ARTS.  115 

name,  though  cut  so  deep  on  half  the  monu- 
ments of  Egypt.  For  what  had  Moses  in 
common  with  Kameses?  And  why  should 
he  commemorate  that  useless  name  ?  In  his 
imperishable  record  the  serene  lawgiver  will 
hand  down  that  tyrant's  name  neither  to  the 
fame  he  so  intensely  coveted,  nor  to  the  in- 
famy he  deserved.  In  all  the  compass  of  his- 
tory there  cannot  be  found  a  more  singular 
case  of  reticence. 


LECTURE   FOURTH. 

THE    EAKLY    CONSANGUINITIES. 

The  books  of  Moses,  as  well  as  the  remainder 
of  the  Scriptures,  seem  to  assert  and  assume 
the  unity  of  the  race,  and  their  common  or- 
igin. This  lies  not  alone  in  the  statement, 
that  Eve  was  called  by  Adam  the  "mother 
of  all  living,"  but  also  in  the  uniform  tracing 
of  all  branches  and  members  of  the  human 
family  to  the  one  ancestry;  in  the  assumption 
that  the  one  fall  affected  in  its  consequences 
all  the  race  as  the  offspring  of  Adam  ;  and  that 
the  redemption  was  and  is  for  that  one  lost 
race. 

The  methods  and  tendencies  of  scientific 
thought  have  in  one  respect  singularly  changed 
the  aspect  of  this  whole  question  within  a 
generation.  It  is  like  one  of  the  marvels  of 
modern  magic.  Forty  years  ago  we  were 
obliged  by  laborious  inductions  and  a  wide 
range  of  observations  and  historical  researches 
to  show  the  possibility — then  vehemently  and 


THE    EARLY    COMSAh^GUINITIES.        117 

sturdily  denied — that  races  so  diverse  could 
have  come  from  a  common  ancestry.  Now 
on  the  other  side,  this  labor  is  taken  off  our 
hands  by  the  general  concession,  rather  the 
vigorous  assertion,  of  the  same  type  of  think- 
ers and  reasoners,  that  anything  and  all  things 
living  may  have  descended  from  precisely  the 
same  kind  of  living  germ, — not  to  speak  of 
what  lies  still  further  back.  It  is,  when  we 
consider  its  celerity,  certainly  one  of  the  most 
amazing  flank-movements,  and  stupendous  rev- 
olutions in  the  history  of  thought. 

But  as  it  may  be  doubted  not  only  whether 
this  theory  has  been  proved,  but  whether  it 
ever  Avill  or  can  be  proved,  we  do  not  find 
ourselves  absolved  from  the  necessity  of  glanc- 
ing, however  briefly,  at  the  lines  of  human 
consanguinity  from  the  beginning  of  the  race. 

Without  resorting  to  any  evolutionary  hy- 
pothesis, we  may  allude  independently  to 
the  indications  firsU  that  the  tribe  of  men 
might  have  descended  from  one  pair.  This 
ground  was  well  canvassed,  in  the  main,  long 
ago.  It  was  well  shown  that  the  physical 
diff'erences  now  existing  are  no  insuperable 
objection.  These  were  found  to  be  in  accord- 
ance with  well-known  facts  of  wider  range. 
Before  the  researches  of  Darwin  had  been 
given  to  the  public,  so  high  an  authority'  as 


118       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Dr.  Carpenter  had  announced  as  a  well  settled 
fact  of  observation  that  among  the  domesti- 
cated races  of  quadrupeds  the  characters 
most  susceptible  of  variation  are,  stature,  gen- 
eral conformation  of  the  body,  conformation  of 
the  skull,  quantity,  texture  and  color  of  the 
hairy  covering,  physical  character  as  shown  in 
the  increase  of  intelligence  and  disappear- 
ance of  some  of  the  instinctive  propensities. 
These  comprise  summarily  the  whole  cata- 
logue of  diversities  found  in  the  human 
species. 

In  regard  to  the  human  race  it  has  been 
shown  abundantly  and  historically  (1)  that  each 
of  the  external  differences  often  ceases  to  be 
characteristic.  Thus  the  black  color  is  found 
not  only  in  individuals,  as  the  black  Jews 
of  Portugal,  but  in  tribes,  as  the  Bicharis  on 
the  Red  Sea,  whose  hair  and  character  are 
perfectly  Semitic;  and  the  white  color  in 
the  brutalized  descendants  of  certain  exiled 
Irish  of  Ulster  whose  features  are  almost  of 
the  African  type.^  "There  are  negi'oes,"  says 
Quatrefages,  "  whose  prognathism  is  no  more 
marked  than  in  whites,  and  whites  in  whom 
it  is  very  pronounced;"  the  quality  of  the 
hair  not  being  an  invariable  mark,  nor  the 
shape  of  the   section   of  the    hair — whether 

>  Cabell,  "  Unity  of  Mankind,"  p.  98. 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        119 

oval,  circular,  or  cylindrical — a  characteristic; 
while  other  distinctive  qualities  of  races  often 
shade  into  each  other.  Indeed  Quatrefages 
has  abundantly  shown  that  the  limits  of 
variation  in  animals  of  the  same  species  are 
even  greater  than  in  man  between  the  white 
and  the  negro  taken  as  extremes,  and  they 
include  color,  anatomical  character  and  ex- 
ternal form,  even  to  the  modifications  of  the 
head.^  (2)  It  has  been  shown  that  we  can 
frequently  trace  the  history  of  great  physical 
changes,  as  in  the  Magyar  of  Hungary,  un- 
questionably of  the  old  Turanian  or  Tartar 
stock,  whose  residence  for  a  thousand  years 
in  the  fertile  plains  of  Southern  Europe,  and 
consequent  changes  of  habits  therewith,  have 
also  changed  the  pyramidal  skull  into  an  ellip- 
tical one,  and  obliterated  every  physical  trace 
of  their  Tartar  features;  the  Turks  of  Europe 
and  Western  Asia  modifying  from  the  Cen- 
tral-Asia toward  the  European  type;  and 
the  physical  degradation  and  transformation 
wrought  by  even  two  centuries  of  hardship 
and  want  in  Sligo  and  northern  Mayo  in 
Ireland/  (3)  It  also  is  found  that  often  the 
linguistic  affinity  is  strongest  where  the  phy- 
sical resemblance  is  slightest,   and  weakest 

2  Quatrefages,  "Human  Species,"  p.  2. 

3  Cabell,  "Unity  of  Mankind,"  p.  99. 


120      HISTORY  IM   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

where  this  is  strongest.  An  instance  of  the 
former  kind  is  found  in  the  relation  of  the 
Malayo-Polynesian  and  American  races,  and 
of  the  latter  kind  in  that  of  the  Chinese  and 
Mongolian  races.  These  fundamental  points 
have  been  abundantly  proved.  If  it  be  ob- 
jected that  the  appearance  of  the  negro  is 
too  far  back  in  history  to  allow  time  for  the 
establishment  of  such  decided  changes,  the 
negro  appearing,  it  has  been  said,  as  early 
as  the  sixth  dynasty  in  Egypt,  the  reply  is 
obvious  and  easy,  that  changes  are  often  rapid 
and  become  permanent  at  once,  especially 
where  the  same  influences  continue;  as  the 
Ancon  breed  of  sheep  sprang  from  a  single 
male  in  Massachusetts  in  1791,  and  the  Mau- 
champ  sheep  in  France  in  1828,  the  hornless 
oxen  of  Paraguay  from  a  single  male  in  1770, 
and  the  Niata  cattle  of  South  America  which 
are  of  comparatively  recent  origin,  but  per- 
manent. So  the  African  race,  once  differen- 
tiated, might  easily  become  permanent — es- 
pecially as  the  conditions  remain.  But  Quat- 
refages  declares  that  "  the  true  negro  did  not 
exist  in  Europe  during  the  quaternary  epoch." 
No  fossil  skull  belongs  to  the  African  or  Mela- 
nesia type.* 

*  " Human  Species, "  p.  292.     The  statement  that  "we 
see  negroes  on  the  monuments  in  the  Sixth  Dynasty" 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        121 

The  objection  arising  from  the  dispersion 
of  the  race  in  primitive  times  across  wide 
expanses  of  ocean,  has  been  abundantly  an- 
swered by  reference  to  known  facts.  Lyell, 
for  example,  cites  cases  of  island  savages  hav- 
ing drifted  in  their  canoes  from  Wateoo  to 
Otaheite,  550  miles,  from  Ancorso  to  Samar, 
800  miles,  from  Anaa,  one  of  the  Coral  Isles, 
to  uninhabited  islands,  600  miles,  and  from 
Ulea  to  one  of  the  Coral  Isles,  1500  miles — 

(Southall,  "Recent  Origin,"  p.  26)  is  not  quite  accurate. 
We  do  not  see  them  depicted  on  the  monuments  till  the 
eighteenth  dynastj'.  The  first  mention  of  Nahsi  or  ne- 
gi'oes  is  found  in  an  inscription  at  San  by  one  Una,  an 
officer  of  Pepi  of  the  Sixth  Dynasty.  He  records,  among 
other  things,  his  having  levied  an  army  of  Nahsi  from 
Aruret  and  other  lands  of  Ethiopia.  The  inscription  in 
full  is  given  in  the  "  Records  of  the  Past,"  vol.  ii.,  trans- 
lated by  S.  Birch.  The  rendering  "negroes"  is  accepted 
also  by  Brugsch,  ("History  of  Egypt,"  i.  p.  119).  Mr. 
Birch,  however,  in  his  notes  on  Wilkinson's  "  Ancient 
Egyptians"  (London  1878)  remarks  (vol.  i.  p.  261)  "the 
Blacks  were  generally  called  Nahsi  or  revolters."  This 
definition  naturally  raises  the  question  how  far  the  color 
is  matter  of  inference,  by  reason  of  the  provinces  being 
Ethiopian.  The  reign  of  Pepi  was  long  subsequent  to  the 
beginning  of  Egyptian  history.  Some  767  years  are  as- 
signed by  Birch  in  his  history  to  the  first  three  dynasties, 
and  about  1000  years  to  the  first  six  dynasties.  This 
allows  a  long  time  for  race  changes.  Indeed  there  is  no 
absurdity  in  the  suggestion  that  race  tendencies  might 
have  been  transmitted  from  before  the  Deluge,  by  the 
marriages  of  Noah's  sons. 


122       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

far  eiiongli  to  have  gone  from  some  parts  of 
Africa  to  South  America  or  from  Spain  to  the 
Azores,  and  thence  to  North  America/  In- 
deed it  seems  now  conceded  that  all  the 
Polynesians,  from  the  Sandwich  Islands  to 
New  Zealand,  from  the  Tonga  Islands  to  Easter 
Island,  belong  to  the  same  race/  In  many 
cases  their  traditions  commemorate  the  an- 
cient migrations/  How  the  communication 
even  with  America  could  be  and  in  part  ac- 
tually was  established  has  been  abundantly 
indicated  by  Quatrefages,'  first  in  the  north- 
west across  Behring's  Straits,  divided  midway 
by  the  St.  Lawrence  Islands,  or  farther  south 
from  Kamschatka  to  Alaska  by  the  Aleutian 
Islands,  or  even  further  south  where  the  "  cur- 
rent of  Tessan  "  has  frequently  cast  abandoned 
junks  on  the  coast  of  California ;  also  directly 
across  the  main  ocean — if  not  over  the  Pacific 
from  China,  of  which  there  seems  to  be  evi- 
dence,^ yet  certainly  and  repeatedly  from  Eu- 
rope— the  Scandinavian  appearing  to  have 
landed  on  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America 
between  Greenland  and  Long  Island  as  many 
as  five  times  from  the  year  886  to  the  year 
1007,  beginning  with  Erick  the  Ked  and  end- 

6  Lyell's  "Geology,"  Eleventh  Ed.  ii.  471-2. 

6  Quatrefages,  "Origin  of  Human  Species,"  p.  188. 

7  Ih.  192-8.  8  j\j,  199  etc.  »  Ih.  204-7. 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        123 

ing  with  Thorfiiin.  So  abundant  and  so 
marked  have  been  these  evidences  of  migra- 
tion over  the  land  and  the  sea  that  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  early  made,  and  left  permanently  on 
record  in  his  latest  (eleventh)  edition,  this 
remarkable  utterance:  "Were  the  whole  of 
mankind  now  cut  off,  with  the  exception  of 
one  family,  inhabiting  the  old  or  the  new  conti- 
nent, or  Australia,  or  even  some  coral  islet  of 
the  Pacific,  we  might  expect  their  descendants, 
though  they  should  never  become  more  en- 
lightened than  the  Australians,  the  South  Sea 
Islanders  or  the  Esquimaux,  to  spread  in  the 
course  of  ages  over  the  whole  earth,  diffused 
partly  by  the  tendency  of  the  population  to 
increase  in  a  limited  district  beyond  the 
means  of  subsistence,  and  partly  by  the  acci- 
dental drifting  of  canoes  by  tides  and  currents 
to  distant  shores."" 

The  objection  arising  from  the  number  and 
diversity  of  languages — reckoned  at  some  900 
or  more — has  been  met  in  part  by  the  success 
already  achieved  in  tracing  the  connection  of 
certain  tongues  widely  dispersed,  as  the  Aryan 
from  India  through  the  west  of  Europe,  to 
one  common  stock  or  family,  and  some  of 
these  families  to  a  still  higher  connection; 
and  the  answer  has   been  supplemented  by 

'0  Lyell's  "Geology,"  iL  474. 


124      HISTORY  IN   THE  PENTATEUCH. 

the  express  views  of  many  of  the  highest  lin- 
guistic authorities,  as  Miiller  and  others,  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  present  aspect  of  the 
various  languages  of  the  earth  to  militate 
against  the  common  origin  of  the  nations. 

And  if  it  be  still  objected  that  granting  the 
possibility  of  an  original  unity  of  speech,  the 
time  supposed  to  have  elapsed  is  insufficient 
to  explain  the  vast  changes;  the  effectual 
answer  has  been  made,  viz.,  that  the  rapidity 
of  linguistic  changes  varies  immensely  with 
the  circumstances  and  conditions  of  life, 
whether  under  the  existence  of  a  written 
and  diffused  literature,  as  for  the  last  few 
centuries  of  modern  Europe,  fixing  its  form, 
or  in  a  region  where  there  is  permanence  of 
residence  and  institutions,  with  settled  and 
centralizing  domestic  relations,  as  in  ancient 
Egypt  and  Palestine, — under  both  these  con- 
ditions language  becomes  fixed  and  remains 
long  unchanged.  But  in  a  country  and  a 
race  undergoing  great  changes  of  location, 
and  diversity  of  experiences  amounting  to 
revolutions,  the  linguistic  changes  are  equally 
great  and  rapid.  Thus  "in  the  ninth  century 
there  existed  in  Europe  no  less  than  seven 
Romance  dialects,  all  descended  from  the 
Latin  and  all  formed  after  the  downfall  of 
the  Eomam  Empire,  viz.,  the  Italian,  Walla- 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        125 

chian,  Rhetian,  ProveiKjal,  Spanish,  Portuguese, 
French."  In  Italy  the  change  was  repeated. 
For  "the  population  of  Rome  in  the  year  1000 
spoke  a  language  quite  different  from  that 
spoken  in  the  time  of  Constantine,  and  equally 
different  from  that  of  their  descendants."" 

The  general  objections  to  the  unity  of  the 
race  and  their  descent  from  a  common  an- 
cestor, thus  disappear  before  hiowyi  specific 
facts.  And  there  meets  us  on  the  positive 
side,  the  following  solid  array  of  arguments 
in  support  and  illustration  of  the  original  re- 
cord, some  of  them  the  result  only  of  late 
researches: 

1.  Their  agreement  in  all  pathological  and 
physiological  phenomena,  subjects  of  the  same 
diseases  and  the  same  remedies;  (2)  their  sim- 
ilarity of  anatomical  structure,  such  that  the 
surgeon  educated  in  New  York  practises 
boldly  with  no  changes  in  Pekin  or  Aus- 
tralia; (3)  similarity  in  the  fundamental  pow- 
ers and  traits  of  mind — so  that  however  de- 
graded any  given  race  may  be,  intellectually 
or  morally,  it  has  the  germs  of  the  highest 
characteristics  and  capacity  for  the  highest 
attainments;  (4)  similar  limits  to  the  duration 
of  life  under  similar  circumstances;  (5)  the 
same  normal  temperature  of  body  and  average 

'1  Southall,  "Receut  Origin  of  Mac,"  pp.  28,  29. 


126       HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

rate  of  pulsation;  (6)  equal  duration  of  preg- 
nancy; (7)  unrestrained  fruitfulness  between 
the  various  races  ;'^  to  which  may  be  added 
(8)  the  apparent  radiation  historically  from 
a  common  centre  in  Western  Asia;  (9)  the 
strong  linguistic  connections  already  indicated, 
binding  together  races  as  far  removed  as  from 
India^to  Scotland  and  from  Malacca  to  North 
America;  (10)  the  common  traditions  and 
customs  of  the  races,  one  of  the  most  remark 
able  of  which  is  the  tradition  of  the  Flood — 
although  by  no  means  the  only  bond  of  con- 
nection of  this  kind.  As  this  Biblical  an- 
nouncement of  the  common  descent  of  the 
human  family  long  antedated  the  researches 
that  confirm  it,  and  practically  over-rode  the 
proud  exclusiveness  of  many  of  the  nations — 
the  Egyptian  lording  it  over  the  "vile  Khetas" 
and  other  tributaries,  the  Athenian  distin- 
guishing himself  from  the  barbarian,  and  the 
Chinese  from  the  outside  barbarian — so  '\^, 
would  appear  that  every  fresh  advance  of  in- 
vestigation in  modern  days  tends  to  add  to  ic 
new  confirmation.  The  arguments  for  a  Pre- 
Adamite  man  have  not  seemed  to  me  impor- 
tant enough  to  require  discussion — in  this 
brief  course — and  they  only  make  after  all  an 
older  Adam. 

12  The  seven  points  given  above  are  from  Delitzsch, 
"Commentary  on  Genesis." 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINTTTES.        127 

On  taking  leave  of  the  first  parents,  the  sa- 
cred narrative  traces  the  line  of  Cain  for  some 
generations  before  dropping  it  finally  to  ac- 
company thenceforth  the  line  of  Shem  and 
the  "sons  of  God."  A  certain  similarity  in 
these  two  lists,  either  in  form  or  signification, 
nas  led  a  considerable  number  of  writers  to 
maintain  that  they  were  originally  the  same, 
and  are  to  be  regarded  as  variations  of  the 
same  tradition.  But  here,  among  other  vin- 
dicators of  the  narrative,  we  find  Lenormant, 
who  is  free  enough  in  his  speculations,  com- 
ing to  the  help  of  Keil  and  Delitzsch  and 
Kurtz,  pointing  out  the  marked  differences 
of  real  meaning  connected  with  a  partial  re- 
semblance of  form  and  sound.  Thus  the 
Mehujael  and  the  Mahalaleel  mean,  the  one 
the  "  smitten  of  God,"  the  other  "  praise  or 
splendor  of  God";  Cain  and  Cainan  "acquisi- 
tion," and  perhaps  "smith,"  Methusael,  and 
i\fethuselah  "  man  of  desire  "  and  "man  of  the 
dart";  Irad  and  Jared  "fugitive"  and  "de- 
scent" or  "service";  and  when  the  name  is 
the  same,  as  Enoch  "initiator,"  it  is  capable 
of  a  wholly  diverse  appHcation,  the  one  being 
the  initiator  of  town  life  and  of  the  secular  arts, 
the  other  of  religious  and  spiritual  life.  While 
etymologies  are  more  than  precarious  in  these 
remote  ages,  we  may  use  Lenormant's  sug- 
gestion so  far  forth  as  to  insist  on  the  clear 


128       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

differences  which  it  has  been  attempted  to 
overlook  and  confound,  and  in  the  two  iden- 
tical instances,  Enoch  and  Lamech,  to  recog- 
nize the  well-known  law  of  identical  names 
passing  down  different  branches  of  the  same 
family  as  well  as  in  the  same  family  line, — a 
law  so  common  in  the  Scriptures  and  out  as 
to  require  no  special  explanation  or  apology. 
It  may  be  added  that  as  we  know  not  when 
the  names  were  given,  whether  contempora- 
neously or  subsequently,  there  is  a  possibility 
which  Delitzsch  and  Lenormant  both  suggest, 
of  a  naming  with  reference  to  the  exhibition 
of  a  contrast  throughout — a  partail  similarity 
and  real  diversity. 

When  now  we  attempt  to  follow  down 
this  second  line  of  early  consanguinity,  the 
Shemite,  with  its  figures,  we  find  ourselves  at 
once  dealing  with  several  extremely  difficult 
and  complicated  questions,  on  which  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge  no  man  can 
offer  an  absolute  solution,  hut  only  suggestions 
which  look  toivards  a  solution,  suggestions  to 
be  made  with  all  modesty. 

These  questions  concern  the  relation  of  the 
individuals  to  each  other  in  the  line  of  suc- 
cession; the  length  of  life  ascribed  to  them 
respectively;  and  the  total  duration  thus  in- 
dicated from  the  Creation  to  the  Deluge. 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        129 

Reversing  the  order  of"  these  questions,  there 
meets  us  that  of  the  length  of  time  prior  to 
the  Deluge,  and  thereby  somewhat  directly 
the  duration  of  man's  history  on  the  earth, 
involved  chiefly  in  this  period.  For  the  length 
of  time  from  the  Christian  era  to  the  birth  of 
Abraham  can  be  reckoned  without  any  large 
range  of  variation — perhaps  200  or  300  years ; 
and  the  period  from  Abraham  to  Noah  offers 
us  two  Biblical  Chronologies  (Hebrew  and 
Septuagint)  admitting,  to  some  degree,  pos- 
sible confirmatory  or  corrective  collation  with 
semi-historic  events.  But  the  previous  period 
stands  alone.  No  figures  whatever  are  offered 
from  any  source  except  the  Pentateuch.  And 
the  importance  of  the  inquiry  shows  itself  in 
its  bearing  on  the  general  question  of  the  anti- 
quity of  the  human  race.  I  propose  to  make 
some  modest  and  cautious  suggestions  bearing 
on  the  inquiry. 

To  determine  the  antiquity  of  the  race,  then, 
resort  has  been  had  to  two  sources  of  inquiry; 
one,  the  figures  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  com- 
bined as  well  as  practicable;  the  other,  certain 
archaeological  explorations,  comparing  the  rel- 
ics of  man  found  buried  in  the  surface  of  the 
earth  with  certain  other  (geological)  phenom- 
ena and  estimating  the  probable  lapse  of  time 
required  for  these  phenomena  to  have  taken 


130      HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

place.  Both  these  processes  are  flexible  and 
give  us,  as  will  appear,  variable  results.  The 
Biblical  figures  are  made  by  intelligent  and 
sober-minded  men  to  vary  some  hundreds  if 
not  thousands  of  years,  according  to  the  meth- 
od of  treatment;  while  the  scientific  figures,  in 
the  hands  of  very  eminent  men,  vary  not  by 
hundreds  or  thousands,  but  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands, hundreds  of  thousands,  and,  in  some 
estimates,  millions  of  years" — a  range  that  is 
as  wild  as  wide. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  scien- 
tific conjectures  for  the  past  few  years  have 
been  becoming  more  cautious  and  much  more 
moderate.  Astronomers  like  Tait  and  others 
are  ceasing  to  allow  the  almost  unlimited  dur- 
ation for  the  present  order  of  things  demanded 
by  Darwin  and  Haeckel.  The  extreme  anti- 
quity of  certain  attendant  and  determinative 
phenomena  is  become,  if  not  greatly  re- 
duced, yet  vigorously  disputed  until  such 
recent  writers  as  Le  Conte,  while  taking  a 
wide  range  up  to  a  possible  100,000  on  one 
hand  come  down  to  10,000  as  the  possible 
limit  on  the  other.  And  in  detail,  whereas 
the  actual  association  of  human   relics  with 

'3  Le  Conte  from  10,000  to  100,000,  Lubbock  100,000  to 
240,000,  Draper  many  hundred  thousand  years,  Prof.  Vivien 
1,000,000,  Dr.  Hunt  9,000,000. 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        131 

those  of  the  mammoth  reindeer,  cave-bear, 
cave-lion,  cave-hyena,  etc.,  and  the  supposed 
great  antiquity  of  the  latter,  was  one  strong 
point,  it  appears,  at  least  by  the  concession  of 
Lubbock,  Dawkins,"  and  others,  that  the  cave- 
iion  and  hyena  are  not  different  from  living 
species,  but  driven /wr^Aer  soutli.,  and  the  bear, 
perhaps,  not  different  from  the  brown  bear  of 
Europe;  and  many  circumstances  since  the 
discovery  of  an  entire  mammoth  frozen  up 
ill  Siberia  so  perfectly  preserved  that  the 
wolves,  etc.,  ate  up  its  flesh,  and  the  fresh- 
ness of  a  great  multitude  of  other  remains, 
— a  reindeer-horn  even  emitting  a  fresh  odor 
when  cut — have  tended  greatly  to  reduce  the 
probable  time  of  the  disappearance.  Indeed 
Winchell  now  remarks,"  "the  contemporane- 
ousness of  man  with  the  extinct  mammoth  is 
no  more  proof  of  man's  high  antiquity,  than 
the  co-existence  of  the  extinct  Dodo  and  the 
Dutch  painter  is  proof  that  the  Dutchman 
lived  a  hundred  thousand  year  ago."  The 
gravel  and  peat  deposites  covering  the  hu- 
man remains,  and  the  adjacent  erosions  of 
the  streams,  as  in  the  Sorame  valley,  are  now 
shown  to  have  admitted  of  far  more  rapid  form- 
ation than  was  formerly  assigned  to  them.    The 

'■»  Lubbock,  p.  289  etc. 

'5  "Preadamite  Man,"  p.  436. 


132       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

vast  remoteness  of  the  glacial  age — another 
time-mark  in  reference  to  man — has  been  im- 
mensely reduced,  with  a  tendency  still  in  the 
same  direction ;  Lyell  having  come  down  from 
the  date  of  800,000  to  200,000  years,  Croll  from 
240,000  to  80,000,  while  Dr.  Andrews  of  Chi- 
cago endeavors  to  show  that  the  glacial  drift 
of  the  Northwestern  lakes  is  not  older  than 
from  5,300  to  7,500.  Southall  and  Prof  Win- 
chell  calculate  its  disappearance  in  Wiscon- 
sin at  a  little  more  than  6000  years  ago. 
]\lr.  Huxley  in  1878  declared  the  evidence 
of  man  prior  to  the  drift  to  be  "  of  a  very  dubi- 
ous character.' '®  Meanwhile  it  has  long  been 
seen  that  to  talk  of  a  stone  age  is  to  speak  of 
a  time  perfectly  fluctuating,  rather  than  of  any 
fixed  or  proximate  date,  inasmuch  as  the 
stone  age  in  one  race  is  contemporaneous 
with  the  silver  and  gold  of  another;  thus 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  all 
stone  age  in  North  America,  although  1000 
years  earlier  the  mound-builders  were  using 
copper;  and  while  all  Europe  and  America 
have  been  for  these  many  centuries  in  the 
height  of  the  arts,  the  stone  age  until  very 
recently  had  not  passed  away  from  the  Es- 
quimaux, if  it  has  now.  The  time  is  merely 
relative,  and  recently  Prof.  Winchell  has  ex- 
J6  Cited  in  "New  Englander,"  May,  1881. 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        133 

pressed  the  belief  that  in  Europe  it  did  not 
go  back  further  than  2500  or  3000  b.  c." 

Wliile  these  variations  and  amazing  reduc- 
tions have  been  going  on  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  one  record,  questions  have  been  also 
raised  in  regard  to  the  other,  the  Biblical,  as  to 
the  possibility  of  its  expansion.  No  questions 
could  legitimately  have  been  raised  but  for 
certain  striking  phenomena  attending  the 
numbers  themselves.  One  of  these  is,  as  you 
are  well  aware,  a  divergence  of  the  Hebrew, 
the  Greek  Septuagint  and  the  Samaritan  fig- 
ures, showing  an  intentional  and  systematic 
set  of  changes,  whereby  the  Samaritan  makes 
the  time  from  Adam's  creation  to  the  flood 
1307  years,  the  Hebrew  1656,  the  Greek  2262— 
the  difference  to  the  time  of  Methuselah  being- 
made  between  the  last  two,  by  the  addition  to  one 
or  subtraction  from  the  other  of  100  years  prior 
to  the  birth  of  the  son  who  is  named  as  continuing 
the  line.  Continued  to  the  time  of  Abraham,  it 
makes  a  difference  of  about  1400  years.  On 
the  whole,  the  predominant  view  has  been  to 
accept  the  Hebrew  as  the  true  text.  But  it  is 
to  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  have  but  one 
Plebrew  manuscript  as  old  as  the  year  580  a.  d., 
and  that  we  in  no  case  seem  to  get  back  of 
a   Masoretic  revision;  while  the  Septuagint 

'7  "Preadamite  Mau,"  p.  421. 


134      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

represents  a  text  which  dates  250  years  b.  c, 
Whatever  the  decision  as  to  relative  correct- 
ness, the  phenomenon  must  raise  questions 
and  doubts,  as  it  shows  somewhere  the  hand 
of  the  emendator.  In  addition  to  this  it  is 
noteworthy  that  we  find  just  ten  generations 
from  Adam  to  Noah  as  from  Noah  to  Abra- 
ham— raising  the  question  whether  these  may 
not,  as  in  Matthew's  genealogy,  have  been  in- 
tentionally equalized  by  omissions,  perhaps  in 
the  first  series.  We  cannot  make  any  special 
account  of  Lenorm ant's  attempt  to  convert  the 
whole  idea  of  ten  generations  into  a  mythical 
thing,  by  comparing  traditions  of  the  same 
number,  found  by  some  forcing,  among  Chal- 
deans, Assyrians,  Iranians,  Indians  and  Egyp- 
tians, since  these,  so  far  as  they  have  founda- 
tion, might  be  but  an  echo  of  the  originally 
known  and  here  recorded  fact.  But  so  sound 
a  theological  writer  as  Dr.  Frederic  Gardiner^* 
has  endeavored  to  show  from  the  method  of 
the  Pentateuch  genealogies  themselves  that 
we  may  possibly  understand  this  record  thus; 
as  combining  in  its  extreme  brevity  two  facts  in 
one,  viz.,  "the  age  in  each  case  of  commencing 
paternity  and  the  name  of  the  particular  son 
by  whom  the  line  was  continued,  he  not  being 
necessarily  the  first  son,  but  born  at  any  sub- 
's "Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  1873,  pp.  323,  seq. 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        135 

sequent  time  during  his  father's  Kfe."  This 
theory  would  allow  such  an  addition  to  the 
chronology  as  to  make,  after  deducting  100 
years  in  each  case  for  longevity  and  infirmity, 
the  extreme  possible  interval  of  time  from  the 
Creation  to  the  Deluge  instead  of  1656  to  be 
6499  years,  and  the  same  principle  would  add 
some  500  years  between  Shem  and  Abraham/* 
In  the  complications  and  questions  that  hang 
over  the  whole  subject  it  may  be  well  to 
bear  in  mind  the  possibility  of  some  such  so- 
lution, should  it  be  necessary.  This  is  quite  a 
different  principle  of  proceeding  from  the  ar- 
bitrary decision  of  Bunseu-*^  that  these  patri- 
archal lives  are  merely  epochs.  Ernst  de 
Bunsen  somewhat  similarily  answers  that  the 
name  of  a  person  was  given  to  a  period^' — a 

19  "Thus,"  he  says,  "Seth  might  have  begun  to  be  a  fa- 
ther at  105,  but  might  have  actually  begotten  Enos  (by  whom 
the  line  was  continued)  at  any  reasonable  time  during  the 
807  years  which  he  afterwards  lived;  so  that  the  true  mean- 
ing in  the  text  can  be  shown  by  a  paraphrase  running  in 
this  wise;  Seth  lived  105  years  and  begat  childi'en  among 
whom  was  Enos;  and  Seth  lived  after  his  beginning  to 
beget  children  807  years  and  begat  both  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, And  all  the  days  of  Seth  were  912  years."  I  must 
refer  you  to  his  own  discussion  for  the  argument. 

20  "Egypt's  Place,"  iv.  p.  395. 

21  "Chronology  of  the  Bible,"  p.  4.  He  maintains  also 
that  "  the  sum  total  of  the  lives  assigned  to  the  patriarchs 
has  been  shortened  by  the  sum  total  of  the  years  which 


136       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

modification  of  Knobel's  view,  which  finds  in 
Lamech  and  his  sons  ethnical  personifications 
or  representations  of  races — and  he  would  add 
the  whole  of  their  lives  without  even  deduct- 
ing for  the  time  previous  to  paternity,  and 
reaches  a  total  of  8225  years  from  Adam  to 
the  Flood.  These  two  views  are  so  far  forth 
combined  and  varied  by  Kev.  T.  P.  Crawford, 
that  he  takes  each  first  statement  ("Adam 
lived  130  years,"  *'Seth  lived  105  years")  to  be 
the  total  life  of  each  individual  and  supposes 
the  name  afterwards  in  each  instance  ("All 
the  days  of  Adam  "  or  Seth)  to  be  used  in  a 
family  sense — of  the  special  Adamite  family 
till  the  Sethite  family  ascendancy. °^  I  do  not 
cite  these  theories  to  approve  them, — although 
for  the  theory  that  a  name  might  represent 
not  a  person  but  a  race  we  certainly  find  war- 
rant in  several  of  the  names  in  Chapter  X.,  (e. 
(/.,  Sidon,  Canaan,  Mizrain,  Javan,  Madai,  etc.) 
— but  to  show  the  possibilities  of  speculation 
and  explanation  upon   this  abbreviated  nar- 

each  patriarch  is  recorded  to  have  Kved  together  with  his 
one  recorded  son,"  thus  reducing  an  actual  period  of  8225 
years,  from  Adam  to  the  Flood,  to  1656  years.  His  re- 
sult it  wiU  be  observed  is  greater  than  that  of  Prof.  Gar- 
diner, reached  in  a  somewhat  different  way. 

-'-  Winchell's  "Preadamites,"  p.  450.  This  gives  the 
same  prolongation  of  time  as  the  theory  of  Gardiner  and 
De  Bunsen. 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        137 

rative.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  find  any 
foundation  for  Lenormant's  attempt  to  con- 
vert these  lives  into  cyclical  periods,  on  the 
main  hint  that  Enoch's  life  was  365  years. 
Enough  perhaps  has  been  said  to  indicate  that 
we  may  well  be  cautious  of  pledging  the 
Scriptures  to  an  absolute  completely  and  rigid 
chronology,  till  we  learn  further  facts. 

While  making  all  allowance  for  possible  exi- 
gencies, personally  I  do  not  as  yet  see  valid 
reason  to  adopt  any  view  of  the  time  of  man's 
existence  very  greatly  in  excess,  if  not  of 
Usher's,  yet  of  Hale's  Chronology,  5411  b.  c. 
I  find  that  all  definite  records  and  distinct 
traditions  go  up  to  a  limited  distance  and  stop 
there,  this  side  even  of  the  date  thus  gained. 
Thus  the  latest  and  most  careful  authorities. 
Chinese  investigators  now  find  nothing  solid 
in  the  antiquity  of  China  earlier  than  eleven 
or  twelve  hundred  b.  c.  ;  we  find  no  Iranic 
civilization  earlier  than  1500  b.  c,  nor  Indian 
earlier  than  1200.  The  Trojan  epoch  does  not 
probably  reach  further  than  1200  to  1300 
B.  c,  nor  the  subjacent  cities  than  2000.  The 
latest  result  in  regard  to  Phenicia  gives  but 
the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century  b.  c. 
Sayce  and  Lenormant  place  the  beginning  of 
Assyria  about  1500  b.  c,  and  Smith  and  Le- 
normant the  beginning  of  Babylon  2300  b.  c. 


138       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

In  the  case  of  Egypt  one  only  of  the  prominent 
Egyptologists,  (Mariette  Bey,)  insists  on  find- 
ing no  contemporaneous  dynasties,  but  makes 
all  successive;  and  his  estimate  of  5004  years 
B.  c.  to  the  accession  of  Menes,  still  falls 
within  the  limits  of  Hale's  Chronology,  while 
Poole's  and  Wilkinson's  estimates  subtract 
more  than  2000  years  from  Mariette's  figures. 
If  it  be  replied  that  the  Egyptian  and  Baby- 
lonian civilizations  first  present  themselves  in 
a  comparatively  advanced  condition,  and  there- 
lore  suppose  a  vast  preceding  interval ;  we  ad- 
mit the  fact,  but  question  the  inference,  at 
least  in  its  extent.  We  affirm  the  striking 
fact  that  Egypt  comes  before  us  with  its  pyra- 
mids and  hieroglyphics,  and  Babylonia  appar- 
ently with  its  four  great  cities  and  some  de- 
gree of  skill  in  the  arts.  But  we  maintain 
that  this  condition  of  things  in  this  region 
best  comports  with  the  Biblical  record  as  to 
the  early  condition  and  progress  of  man,  with 
his  attainment  in  the  arts,  and  the  longevity 
that  facilitated  that  progress  by  the  contempo- 
rary accumulation  of  the  fruits  of  ripened  ex- 
perience. If  we  accept  the  Biblical  antedilu- 
vian narrative  as  it  stands,  all  eastern  history 
is  no  longer  mysterious,  but  a  simple  and  na- 
tural phenomenon.  It  is  thoroughly  consist- 
ent with  itself  and  with  all  known  facts.    And 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        139 

in  this  line  a  very  striking  coincidence  is  men- 
tioned, viz. :  "  Taking  as  a  basis  the  annual 
increase  of  population  in  France  (which  has 
the  best  statistics  for  the  past  two  hundred 
years)  at  -^^  a  year,  six  persons  (say  Sheni, 
Ham,  and  Japheth,  with  their  wives)  would  in- 
crease to  1,400,000,000  in  4211  years.  But  in 
1863,  the  estimated  population  of  the  earth 
was  1,400,000,000,  and  4211  years  would  carry 
us  back  from  that  time  to  2348  b.  c,  the  com- 
mon date  of  the  Flood."  "  And  inasmuch  as 
man  is  always  a  constructor  of  permanent 
memorials,  marking  in  some  way  the  earth's 
surface,  even  in  his  rudest  state,  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  with  his  structures — dolmens, 
mounds,  stone  circles,  fortifications  or  enclos- 
ures, excavations,  stone  huts,  and  the  like, 
the  direct  and  common  sense  inquiry  is  this: 
if  man  has  been  upon  the  earth  all  these  tens 
or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years,  where  are 
those  clear  marks  of  that  long  residence  to  be 
found  ?     And  echo  answers,  "  Where  ?  " 

But  on  this  subject  of  the  early  consan- 
guinities as  exhibited  in  the  tenth  of  Genesis, 
one  point  I  have  as  yet  barely  touched, — the 
extreme  longevity  of  that  antediluvian  line, 
which  such  writers  as  Bunsen  and  Lenormant 
have  pronounced  intrinsically  impossible,-^  and 

23  "NewEnglauder,"  May,  1881. 

24  Bunsen,  "Egypt's  Place,"  iv.  395. 


140       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

"  inconsistent  with  the  physiological  condi- 
tions of  the  terrestrial  life  of  man."''*  We  do 
not  accept  any  such  arbitrary  dictum  as  de- 
ciding the  question.  Nor  do  we  meanwhile 
recognize  the  practicability  of  escaping  the 
difficulty  by  supposing  a  shorter  year,  such 
as  a  month.  This  would  encounter  the  diffi- 
culty of  making  one  patriarch  a  father  at  the 
age  of  between  five  and  six  of  our  years;  and 
is  explicitly  precluded  by  the  narrative  in  the 
very  next  chapter,  which,  while  mentioning 
what  took  place  in  the  six  hundredth  and  six 
hundred  and  first  years  of  Noah's  life,  gives 
us  also  the  reckoning  of  months  in  the  year, 
up  to  ten  at  least,  and  of  days  in  the  month 
up  to  twenty-seven.  We  may  content  our- 
selves with  the  general  principle  announced 
by  Delitzsch,  that  "the  duration  of  antedilu- 
vian life  depended  on  circumstances  and  con- 
ditions of  the  earth  which  our  present  knowl- 
edge cannot  reach."  Not  to  suggest  that 
"  climate,  weather,  and  other  natural  condi- 
tions may  have  been  quite  different"  and  that 
"  life  was  much  more  simple  and  uniform,"  we 
may  emphasize  the  statement  that  "the  after- 
effects of  the  condition  of  man  in  paradise 
[destined  for  immortality]  would  not  be  im- 
mediately exhausted." 

2s  Lenormant,  "  Contemporary  Keview,"  April  1880. 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        141 

All  assertions  how  long  man  could  live  un- 
der very  different  circumstances  from  those 
which  thousands  of  years  of  sin  and  self-abuse 
have  brought  upon  him  are  daring,  if  not  wild. 
They  are  as  easy  to  make  as  they  are  impos- 
sible to  prove.  There  is  a  respectable  English 
writer  who  has  argued  from  time  to  time,  I 
believe  in  the  "  Athenaeum,"  that  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  life  longer  than  one  hundred 
years.  The  question  is  one  on  which  a  man 
dogmatizes,  like  this  man,  according  to  his 
surroundings  and  observations. 

Ask  a  man  how  long  a  tree  will  live.  If 
he  looks  only  on  a  peach-tree,  he  might  say 
perhaps  forty  or  fifty  years;  on  a  grove  of 
poplars  or  maples,  possibly  one  hundred. 
Show  him  the  old  elm  on  Boston  Common 
and  its  history,  and  he  would  say  three  hun- 
dred. Let  him  see  the  old  yew  in  Fountains 
Abbey,  and  he  would  say  five  hundred.  Let 
him  look  on  the  old  olive-trees  that  stand  at 
the  foot  of  Mount  Olivet,  and  he  would  add 
an  indefinite  number  of  centuries  more.  Take 
him  to  the  fallen  Sequoia  Gigantea  of  Cali- 
fornia, and  Mr.  Bowles  would  tell  him  that 
the  least  possible  age  of  one  of  these  is  one 
thousand  three  hundred  and  eighty  years, 
and  that  the  mean  computation  more  than 
doubles    that    amount.     A    little    additional 


142       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH 

knowledge  would  considerably  change  a 
man's  estimate  of  what  is  possible  in  the 
life  of  a  tree.  Perhaps  also  of  a  lyian.  Now 
we  must  remember  how  surely  all  other 
mechanisms  than  the  living  organism  are 
not  only  impaired,  but  ruined  by  misuse; 
and  moreover  how  even  that  organism  often 
breaks  down,  and  not  only  so,  but  transmits 
to  the  generations  to  come  the  effects  of  the 
misuse,  sometimes  with  accumulations,  till 
certain  families  are  abridged  of  more  than 
half  their  life- time  as  compared  with  others, 
and  how  we  inherit  the  gouts  and  scrofulas 
of  European  ancestry;  we  have  but  to  con- 
sider how  better  medical  and  sanitary  condi- 
tions have  within  our  own  knowledge  consider- 
ably raised  the  average  length  of  a  generation ; 
we  have  also  but  to  consider  what  a  constant 
strain  is  put  by  most  men  if  not  by  all  men 
upon  the  endurance  of  their  vital  powers  by 
various  irregularities,  carelessness,  if  not  pos- 
itive a-buse  of  their  systems,  and  how  these 
causes  have  been  in  operation  for  ages  upon 
ages  in  succession, — and  I  think  that  instead 
of  wondering  that  the  life,  now  reduced  to  a 
century  at  the  longest,  might  in  the  begin- 
ning, before  all  these  long  and  terrible  de- 
preciating influences  had  done  their  work  of 
ruin,  have  lasted  indefinitely  longer,  we  shall 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        143 

rather  say,  it  could  hardly  be  otherwise.  I 
think  that  from  our  knowledge  of  the  human 
race  in  its  present  conditions  no  man  is  com- 
petent to  say  how  long  a  life  was  "  intrinsi- 
cally impossible." 

But  the  most  remarkable  exhibition  of  the 
early  affinities  is  found  in  the  genealogies  of 
the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis.  It  is  a  chapter 
that  has  furnished  the  basis  of  a  vast  amount 
of  investigation  and  called  forth  a  singular 
amount  of  admiration,  being,  in  Bunsen's  lan- 
guage, "  the  most  learned  of  all  ancient  docu- 
ments, and  the  most  ancient  among  the 
learned;"  or,  as  Johannes  Von  Mliller  puts 
it,  "  history  has  its  beginning  in  this  table." 
It  is  a  theme  not  for  a  part  of  a  lecture  or  a 
lecture  but,  as  it  has  been  made,  for  a  volume. 
Nothing  like  it  is  to  be  found  in  ancient  his- 
tory. And  its  antiquity  is  beyond  anything 
but  conjecture.  In  view  of  all  the  circum- 
stances we  need  not  be  startled  at  Herder's 
opinion  that  the  central  and  original  register 
goes  back  to  about  the  time  of  Peleg  and 
the  region  which  he  inhabited,  in  whose  time 
"the  earth  was  divided,"  when  the  various 
races  were  making  their  migrations,  supple- 
mented, however,  in  particular  lines  by  the  la- 
ter additions,  which  come  down,  as  Delitzsch 
formerly  suggested,  to  the  time  of  Joshua. 


144      HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

Thus,  of  the  progeny  of  Japheth  only  two  gen- 
erations are  given,  but  of  Shem  six.  And  in 
this  the  line  of  Heber  is  traced  down  to  the 
children  of  Peleg  and  Joktan,  while  of  Aram 
only  one  generation  is  mentioned.  But  the  very 
limitations  and  omissions  in  many  directions 
are  indications  of  its  extreme  antiquity.  Her- 
der well  says,  "The  very  poverty  of  this  chart 
is  its  security  against  being  lost  or  interpo- 
lated," and  "a  pledge  of  its  truth."  ^^  Thus 
the  Chinese  do  not  appear;  for  in  the  time  of 
Moses  they  had  not  apparently  attained  any 
such  prominence  as  to  overcome  the  obscurity 
of  their  distance.  And  in  ascribing  Chittim, 
{.  e.,  Cyprus  (and  the  neighboring  coast  and 
islands  perhaps)  to  the  line  of  Javan,  or  the 
lonians,  the  writer  disregards  the  Phenician  col- 
onization as  wholly  subordinate  to  the  original 
Greek  occupancy  of  the  island  as  a  whole,  though 
the  name  Chittim  is  perhaps  preserved  in  the 
Citium  which  was  one  of  the  chief  Phenician 
cities.  Phenicia  had  not  then  risen  to  its  com 
mercial  influence  and  power.  Indeed  the  more 
ancient  condition  of  Phenicia  is  very  distinctly 
indicated  in  the  absense  of  all  allusion  to  Tyre, 
its  greatest  though  later  mart,  and  the  mention 
only  of  the  older  Sidon  as  its  representative. 
Another  indication  of  the  same  fact  is  found 
26  Herder,  "Spirit  of  Hebrew  Poetry,"  i.  252,  250. 


THE    EARLY   CONSANGUINITIES.        145 

in  the  disappearance  from  all  subsequent  his- 
tory of  some  prominent  branches  of  the  lines. 
Thus  among  the  Shemite  race,  Eber  and  Elam 
and  Asshur  can  be  traced  distinctly  in  the 
Hebrews,  Elamites,  Assyrians,  Syrians;  but 
while  Lud  is  questionable  at  least,  Arphaxad 
has  wholly  disappeared.  So  in  other  cases. 
Meanwhile  the  striking  character  of  the  record 
appears  in  the  circumstance  that  in  all  the 
instances  in  this  branch  on  which  modern 
science  can  form  a  judgment,  viz.,  three  of 
them,  it  fully  coincides  with  the  ancient  regis- 
ter in  pronouncing  them  Semitic.  So  too  with 
the  Japhethic  races,  six  in  the  enumeration,  the 
latest  results  coincide  in  affirming,  in  general, 
the  affiliation  here  first  announced.  It  finds  in 
Javan,  with  its  subdivisions,  the  Ionian  race; 
in  Gomer,  the  Cymri  and  allied  tribes  of  vari- 
ous analogous  names,  corresponding  to  the  Cel 
tic  race;  in  ]\Iadai  the  Medes;  in  Magog  prob 
fibly  the  Scythian  tribes;  in  Tiras  broadly  the 
Thracians ;  in  Tubal  and  Meshech  probably  the 
Tibareni  an  d  Moschi,  that  long  ago  passed  away 
without  literature  or  monuments.  But  the  oth- 
ers are  the  chief  races  now  thoroughly-  known 
to  be  affiliated, — the  common  ancestors  of  the 
Celts,  the  Germans,  the  Sclaves,  the  Greeks  and 
liomans,thePersiansand  Hindoos,  the  great  In- 
do-Germanic,  Indo-European,  or  Aryan  family. 


146       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Similar  iu  general,  though  perhaps  less  dis- 
tinct and  complete  are  the  results  reached  in 
regard  to  the  descendants  of  Ham.  But  here 
as  throughout  the  catalogue,  the  chief  difficulty 
lies  in  fact  that  these  sources  of  history  lie  so 
far  back  of  all  connected  secular  history,  that 
we  lack  the  means  to  bridge  the  chasm. 

But  any  fuller  exposition  or  even  comment 
upon  this  remarkable  record  is  precluded. 
My  end  is  subserved  in  calling  special  atten- 
tion to  its  character,  and,  above  all,  to  its  bond 
of  connection,  tlie  bond  of  universal  consan- 
guinity. Nothing  like  it,  as  I  have  said,  ap- 
pears in  antiquity.  On  one  of  the  walls  at 
Thebes,  is  an  enumeration  of  certain  nations 
and  tribes,  indeed.  But  they  are  few,  unre- 
lated, and  recorded  only  as  the  conquests  of 
Earaeses  the  Great.  But  here,  in  the  words 
of  Dillmann,  is  "  an  exhibition  of  the  ultimate 
relationship  of  all  the  nations  far  and  near, 
outwardly  and  inwardly  so  diverse  as  the 
weighty  thought  of  this  survey.  Israel  is  but 
one  member  of  universal  humanity.  All  men 
and  nations  are  of  the  same  race,  the  same 
value,  and  the  same  consideration,  brethren  and 
kindred.  This  Biblical  consideration  sets  out 
from  the  greatness  and  entirety  of  humanity, 
before  it  turns  itself  to  the  history  of  an  indi- 
vidual people,  the  people  of  God,  and  then  at 


THE    EARLY    CONSANGUINITIES.        147 

length  by  the  months  of  the  prophets,  points 
forward  to  the  end  and  ultimate  goal  of  this 
several  history,  the  union  of  all  nations  in  the 
kingdom  of  God." 

That  great  principle  which  the  illustrious 
Hungarian  exile  made  his  grand  text  as  he 
traversed  this  land  in  1852 — the  "Solidarity" 
of  the  Nations — was  enunciated  thousands  of 
years  earlier,  and  in  a  higher  form,  in  the  an- 
cient table  of  the  nations,  in  the  Pentateuch. 


LECTURE   FIFTH. 

THE  EAKLY  MOVEMENTS  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

The  same  record  that  affirms  and  traces  the 
original  unity  of  the  race,  also  gives  ns  the 
oldest  and  for  a  long  period,  yes  even  now, 
the  only  account  of  its  dispersion,  its  early 
locations,  migrations  and  movements.  We 
are  in  a  track  otherwise  untrodden.  It  is 
but  recently  that  we  have  been  able  fully 
to  test  the  correctness  and  value  of  this  an- 
cient source  of  information.  A  solitary  state- 
ment indicates  the  tendency  begun  before  the 
Flood,  in  the  wandering  of  Cain  to  a  region 
of  which  we  have  no  further  knowledge  than 
the  fact.  Some  writers — even  so  respectable 
and  conservative  an  author  as  Dr.  Dawson' — 
have  dropped  the  suggestion  that  in  some  of 
the  older  stone  relics  of  Europe,  and  in  case 
of  the  larger  men,  like  those  of  Cro-magnon 
and  Mentone,  we  may  have  remains  of  an- 
tediluvian times.     In   some  cases   the   cave- 

1  "Origin  of  the  Earth,"  p.  299. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      149 

dwellers  appear  to  have  been  destroyed  by- 
floods.  Other  writers  (as  Bunsen)  have 
called  attention  to  the  alleged  fact  that 
neither  the  Chinese  nor  the  Egyptians  (al- 
most alone)  have  any  tradition  of  the  Del- 
uge.' In  Egypt  certainly  this  would  not  be 
remarkable,  when  we  consider  the  nature  of 
the  old  Egyptian  inscriptions, — in  no  case  his- 
torical or  traditional.  They  delineate  simply 
ciu-rent  affairs,  or  are  at  most  tables  of  royal 
ancestry.  But  it  is  not  strictly  true  either  of 
China  or  Egypt.  China  records  a  local  deluge 
at  a  time  diff"erently  reckoned  as  2062  or  2278 
B.  c.^  Egypt  exhibits  in  the  tomb  of  Seti  I. 
the  record  of  a  destruction  of  mankind  by  the 
gods  in  all  respects  parallel  to  that  of  the 
Pentateuch,  except  that  it  was  not  by  a  flood 
— a  fact  well  explained  by  the  Abbe  Vigoroux 
thus,  that  "inasmuch  as  an  inundation  was  for 
them  riches  and  life,  they  denied  the  tradi- 
tion ;  the  race  was  destroyed  in  another  mode, 
and  the  inundation  became  to  them  the  mark 
that  the  anger  of  Ra  was  appeased."*  All 
speculations  on  antediluvian  races,  however, 
are  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge 
superfluous.     Nor  will  I  pause  to  discuss  the 

2  "Egypt's  Place,"  iii.  379. 

3  Lenormant,  "Orig."  p.  383. 
<  lb.  p.  454. 


150       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

question  how  that  deluge  was  brought  about; 
whether,  according  to  the  suggestion  of  Hugh 
Miller  and  others,  by  the  gradual  subsidence 
and  emergence  of  a  limited  area  in  Asia  Minor, 
say  with  a  radius  of  400  miles  from  a  center 
near  Mosul,  and  thus  extending  into  the  Eux- 
ine,  Caspian  and  Mediterranean,  whereby  the 
inrushing  waters  would  destroy  the  whole 
race,  not  yet  dispersed  beyond  that  region; 
or,  with  Dawson  and  others,  by  the  great 
and  general  submergence  which  followed 
the  glacial  epoch,  and,  by  general  admis- 
sion, preceded  the  historical  era,  and  of 
which  traces  exist  alike  in  North  and  South 
America,  in  Asia  and  in  Europe.^  Time  may 
possibly  decide  the  question.  Enough  if  we 
may,  after  the  flood,  look  in  upon  the  disinte- 
grations and  the  crystallizations  of  the  races, 
in  their  formative  condition  and  the  compara- 
tive youth  of  the  world.  Nothing  could  be 
more  interesting  than  such  a  study  were  we 
able  to  present  it  in  full.  But  alas,  the  race, 
like  the  individual,  .when  it  arrives  at  the 
stage  for  such  investigations,  has  so  far  re- 
ceded from  its  infantile  condition  as  to  have 
lost  the  recollection  of  its  infant  experience 
and  history. 

In  the  Pentateuch  alone  are  we  permitted 
5  Southall,  "Receut  Origin  of  Man,"  pp.  210,  283,  287. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      151 

to  take  such  a  survey,  however  limited.  Let 
us  turn  its  unique  pages  and  read  v^^hat  we 
may  in  its  brief  hints. 

The  earhest  post-diluvian  indication  of 
national  movement  is  found  in  the  statement 
(Gen.  ix.  19),  "These  [Shem,  Ham  and  Japheth] 
are  the  three  sons  of  Noah,  and  of  them  was 
the  whole  earth  overspread."  Next  comes 
the  announcement  (Gen.  x.  2)  that  one  of 
Eber's  sons  was  named  Peleg,  "for  in  his  days 
the  earth  was  divided."  Here  the  simplest 
interpretation  is  substantially  that  of  Fiirst 
who  says  that  "  here  px  stands  for  pN  '5^?'^"'' 
inhabitants  of  the  earth."  A  part  of  the  pro- 
cess, as  actually  begun,  is  narrated  in  the  next 
chapter  in  connection  with  the  tower  of  Babel, 
(Chap.  xi.).  Here  we  read  first  of  a  move- 
ment, probably  not  '•'•from  the  east"  but  ^'•east- 
tuard,''  as  it  is  admissible  according  both  to 
Gesenius  and  Ewald  to  render  the  phrase, 
and  as  Tuch,  Delitzsch,  Knobel,  Wright,  Bun- 
sen  and  others  agree  (just  as  in  Gen.  xiii.  11; 
iii.  24;  xii.  8;  ii.  8).  It  is  viewed  as  east- 
ward from  the  writer's  standpoint  in  Pales- 
tine, to  whom  the  people  of  Mesopotamia  were 
"sons  of  the  east"  (Dillmann),  or  as  it  lay,  if 
southerly,  also  easterly  from  Armenia  (Knobel). 
The  name  of  the  land  Shinar,  lying  eastward, 
has   been    within  these   few   years  identified 


152       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

(by  Lenormant  and  Sayce)  with  the  Sumir 
of  the  Babylonian  inscriptions,  and  is  the  old- 
est name,  as  well  as  the  latest  discovered. 

From  this  region  we  are  told  God  accom- 
plished a  still  greater  movement, — a  scatter- 
ing "abroad  upon  the  face  of  the  earth" — 
that  which  was  foretokened  in  the  narrative 
of  Noah  and  described  in  the  "  table  of  the 
nations."  The  immediate  occasion  is  given 
as  the  confusion  of  tongues,  whereby  in  a 
supernatural  way  was  precipitated  the  change 
that  in  due  time  was  sure  to  come  through 
natural  causes.  The  separation,  too,  would 
have  been  in  process  of  time  necessitated. 
Indeed  the  movement  to  the  land  of  Shinar 
has  the  appearance  of  being  the  first  step  of 
that  inevitable  movement  which  has  been  so 
largely  characteristic  of  early  national  life: 
increase  of  population  compelling  dispersion, 
• — a  swarming  of  the  old  hive  followed  by  the 
pressing  and  crowding  of  each  last  comer  upon 
the  heels  of  its  predecessor,  till,  as  in  the  Aryan 
movement  westward,  the  Celts  were  arrested 
only  by  the  distant  shores  of  the  ocean  and 
the  islands,  and  still  pressed  from  behind;  or 
as  in  this  country  the  older  occupants  were 
driven  steadily  southward. 

In  this  process  the  distance  of  the  journey- 
in  gs,  the  incessant  changes  and  abandonments 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS   OF  NATIONS.      153 

of  all  accumulated  property,  and  recedings 
from  the  source  of  supply  and  from  the  radi- 
ating centers  of  progress,  easily  account  for 
the  debased  conditions  of  life  under  which 
they  are  often  found.  Emigration,  when  in- 
cessant, uncorrected  and  unresisted,  tends  to 
barbarism.  Those  tribes  that  earliest  found 
and  retained  their  near  and  permanent  abodes, 
other  things  being  equal,  earliest  developed 
and  best  retained  the  highest  forms  of  life 
and  art.  Such  was  the  case  in  Chaldea, 
Babylonia,  India,  with  their  fertile  and  pro- 
ductive plains  and  mighty  streams,  and,  above 
all,  Egypt  with  its  marvellous  position  close 
along  the  banks  of  its  matchless  river  of  clock- 
work overflow,  and  its  wonderful  facilities  and 
resources,  and  means  of  luxury,  and  also  along 
the  eastern  and  northern  parts  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, where  everything  invited  to  com- 
merce, to  invention  and  production — climate, 
soil,  minerals  and  harbors,  especially  in  Phe 
nicia  with  her  two  noble  harbors  in  conve 
nient  nearness  to  the  trade  and  civilization 
of  the  more  ancient  East  and  to  the  new 
products  of  the  rising  West.  The  tribes  that 
drove  each  other  through  the  length  of  Europe, 
through  its  grim  forests  and  over  its  moun 
tains,  across  its  rushing  streams,  and  through 
its  winter  snows,  never  developed  the  higher 


154       HISTORY  m   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

traits  of  human  life  till  they  too  at  last  be- 
came stationary,  and  that  was  only  after  they 
had  nearly  extinguished  what  may  have  been 
the  settled  civilization  of  their  earlier  home. 

Our  celebrated  table  (Genesis  x.)  shows  us 
something  of  this  process  of  dispersion,  and 
would  show  us  still  more,  were  we  in  a  con- 
dition more  fully  to  interpret  it.  But  unfor- 
tunately it  is  ancient  even  beyond  our  reach. 
Some  things,  however,  stand  out  very  distinct. 
We  have  no  indication  in  the  Pentateuch 
indeed  what  direction  the  race  of  Gomer 
took.  Ezekiel,  however,  brings  them  "from 
the  north  quarter"  (xxxviii.  2-6),  and  we  can 
only  find  them  in  the  wide-spread  names  of 
the  Kimmerii,  Cymri,  and  Cambri,  in  Crimea 
and  Cumberland,  etc.  But  Javan  or  the  loni- 
ans  are  distinctly  relegated  to  "the  isles,"  or 
rather  maritime  regions  (which  the  word  in- 
cludes) "of  the  Gentiles,"  and  the  specifica- 
tions of  the  book  include  the  Eolians  (Eli- 
shah),  Tarshish  (propably  in  Cilicia,  though 
some  say  Spain — Andalusia  and  Murcia),  Cy- 
prus (Chittim)  and  perhaps  tlie  Rhodians, 
(Dodanim  or  Rodanira), — to  which  is  added, 
to  indicate  their  still  wider  dispersion,  "  every 
one  after  his  own  tongue,  after  their  families,  in 
their  nations"  (v.  5).  Indeed  the  vast  spread 
and  conspicuous  historic  influences  and  activ- 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.       155 

ity  of  the  several  Japhethic  races,  of  which 
Javan  was  foremost,  was  even  more  emphat- 
ically announced  in  the  utterance  of  Noah, 
"  God  shall  enlarge — make  wide  room  for — 
Japheth,  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the  tents  of 
Shem";  as  wide  room  as  from  India,  not  only 
to  the  western  borders  of  Europe,  but  to  the 
western  bordei's  of  America,  and  now  back 
again  to  the  East,  round  the  globe,  and  long 
ago  appropriating  all  the  spiritual  blessings 
that  dwelt  in  the  tents  of  Shem.  And  whether 
any  choose  to  call  this  history  or  prophecy,  it  is 
in  either  case  alike  distinct. 

The  direction  early  taken  by  the  several 
races  is  to  a  considerable  extent  indicated 
only  by  assigning  the  name  of  the  region  to 
the  race.  Thus  Madai,  Sidon,  Mizraim  re- 
spectively designate  the  Medes  and  Persians, 
the  Phenicians,  and  Egyptians.  Here  Si, Ion 
represents  the  race  of  which  it  was  the  early 
prominent  seat  of  activity,  being  mentioned 
in  Joshua  as  already  "gi'eat  Sidon"  (Josh. 
xi.  8). 

And  in  denominating  Sidon  "  the  firstborn 
of  Canaan,"  the  narrative  records  the  great 
historic  fact  that  at  a  period  estimated  (by 
many)  to  be  some  four  thousand  years  ago, 
"a  tribe  speaking  a  Semitic  tongue  abandoned 
the  nomad  habits  of  their  ancestors,  and  build- 


156      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

ing  some  rude  huts  beside  a  creek,  sheltered 
by  an  inland  breakwater,  took  to  the  sea, 
and  called  themselves  'Sidonians'  or  'Fisher- 
men.' It  was  a  memorable  day  for  human- 
ity, when  the  first  colonizing  and  commercial 
power  which  the  world  had  seen,  launched  its 
rude  craft  tentatively  on  the  Mediterranean. 
On  that  day  the  arts  and  culture  of  the  East 
may  be  said  to  have  set  out  on  their  journey 
to  the  West,  and  the  long  process  to  have  be- 
gun by  which  the  sceptre  was  transferred  from 
the  primeval  '  river  kingdoms  '  to  the  republics 
of  the  Inland  Sea,  and  from  these  passed  over 
to  the  'ocean  empires'  of  modern  times."*  It 
was  fai",  far  back — it  may  be  five  or  seven 
liundred  years  prior  to  the  greatness  of  this 
"Rock"  city  Tyre  (1500  b.  c.)  which  is  known 
neither  to  the  Iliad  nor  the  Odyssey — two 
hundred  years  more  than  that  earlier  than 
the  occupation  of  Carthage.  Nay,  it  is  supposed 
that  even  while  Israel  was  in  Egypt'  the  Si- 
donian  mariners,  beginning  to  be  crowded  by 
the  eai-ly  Greeks,  their  pupils  and  rivals,  guided 
by  the  pole-star,  boldly  struck  out  for  the  riches 
of  Spain,  the  tin  of  Britain  and  the  amber  of 
the  Baltic. 

How  remarkably  this  narrative  antedates  all 
other  historic  knowledge  and  fills  its  gaps,  ap- 

6  "Edinburgh  Kevisw,"  Jan.  1882.  i  lb. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS   OF  NATIONS.      157 

pears  somewhat  conspicuously  in  regard  to 
Mizraim  or  the  Egyptians,  who  are  here  made 
to  radiate  from  this  central  stock  in  Asia 
through  Noah's  son  Ham.  Now  "the  Egyp- 
tians themselves  [ancient  as  they  are]  appear 
to  have  lost  the  recollection  of  their  origin."' 
Diodorus  would  refer  them  to  Ethiopia.  But 
the  disclosures  of  the  monuments  make  Etlii- 
ojiin  to  have  been  colonized  from  Egypt.^  The 
study  of  the  early  status  and  the  language 
brings  us  to  this  latest  conclusion  :  "The  Egyp- 
tian race  in  its  ethnological  characteristics  is 
connected  with  the  white  population  of  early 
Asia :  the  Egyptian  language  by  its  grammat- 
ical form  with  the  language  called  Semitic."" 
Brugsch  Bey  declares  it  incontestably  proven 
that  the  Egyptians  originated  in  Asia.  "They 
must  have  belonged  to  the  great  Caucasian 
race.  With  some  other  nations  apparently  they 
form  a  third  branch  of  it,  the  Cushite,  differ- 
ent in  certain  peculiarities  from  the  branches 
called  Pelasgic  and  Semitic."  As  Maspero 
expresses  liimself  moi'e  fully:  "While  the 
Egyptian  language,  sooner  cultivated,  was  ar- 
rested in  its  development,  the  Semitic  tongues 
continued  thus  through  long  ages,  so  that  if 
there  is  evidently  a  relation  of  stock  between 

8  Maspero,  "  Histoire  Ancienne,"  p.  13.      »  76.  p.  14. 
'0  Ih.  p.  16.  11   "Histoire  d'Egypte,"  pp.  5,  6. 


158       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

the  language  of  Egypt  and  those  of  Asia,  the 
relation  is  distant  enough  to  leave  to  this 
people  a  distant  physiognomy/''  He  calls  it 
"  proto-Semitic."  This  would  bring  them  into 
the  relation  indicated  in  the  Pentateuch,  early 
emigrants  from  Asia  and  connected  in  lan- 
guage with  at  least  the  Canaanites,  according 
to  the  received  views,  including  the  Pheni- 
cians.  I  will  not  follow  Maspero  (after  De 
Rouge)  in  the  designation  of  the  several  de- 
scendants or  tribes  of  Mizraim  to  their  respect- 
ive localities  from  the  hieroglyphic  records — 
as  when  he  makes  the  Ludim  to  be  the  Routou 
or  Loudou,  or  Egyptians  proper,  Anamim  the 
Anou  or  inhabitants  of  On  of  the  north  (Heli- 
opolis)  and  On  of  the  south  (Hermonthis;, 
Lehabim  the  Lybians,  Natuphim  No-Phtah 
on  the  north  of  Memphis,  the  Pathrusim,  the 
Pa-to-res,  midlanders  between  Memphis  and 
the  first  cataract."  These  may  be  considered 
as  too  precarious,  however  striking. 

Again  the  Canaanite  tribes  in  other  por- 
tions of  the  Pentateuch  are  located  in  detail, 
and  they  are  found  scattered  over  the  whole 
region  from  Sidon  to  Gaza,  and  on  the  east  to 
the  Ghor  at  an  unknown  point,  Lasha.  Here 
we  find  our  only  distinct  knowledge  of  a  fam- 
ily of  tribes — including  the  warlike  Kheta  or 
'2  "Histoire  Ancienne,"  p.  17.  '^  j^.  p.  14. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      159 

Hittites  of  the  Egyptian  monuments — once 
numerous  and  powerful,  who  fought  well  for 
their  strongholds,  till  they  were  overpowered 
Dy  a  mightier  destiny,  and  disappeared  with- 
out a  vestige,  unless  it  be  found  in  the  troglo- 
dyte caves  of  the  south,  in  certain  names  not 
yet  displaced,  and  perhaps  in  the  language 
they  may  have  imparted  to  the  long  tolerated 
and  afterward  dominant  Hebrew  race,  and  in 
certain  few  inscriptions  about  the  Orentes,  not 
yet  deciphered. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  statements  of 
this  earliest  record  is  that  in  regard  to  Nim- 
rod — so  remote  indeed  that  though  identified 
by  George  Smith  with  the  Izdhubar  of  the 
Babylonian  tablets,  the  latter  is  by  others 
(Sayce  and  Lenormant)  remanded  to  the 
sphei'e  of  legends.  He  was  a  Cushite  and 
"  the  beginning  of  his  kingdom  was  Babel 
and  Erech  and  Accad  and  Calneh  in  the  land 
of  Shinar.  And  out  of  that  land  he  went 
forth  and  builded  Nineveh  and  the  city  of 
Rehoboth  and  Calah  and  Resen  between  Nin- 
eveh and  Calah,  the  same  is  a  great  city." 
It  is  not  my  purpose  to  disentangle  the  con- 
struction and  details  of  this  brief  and  difficult 
statement,  but  to  notice  the  career  of  early 
conquest  and  construction  thus  bi'iefly  indi- 
cated.    This  rearing  of  certain  great  cities  in 


160      HISTORY  IN  THE  PENTATEUCH. 

Shinar  by  a  Hamitic,  Cushite  monarch  who 
also  pushed  his  way  into  Asshur,  which  re- 
gion however  was  assigned  to  the  family  of 
Shem,  and  from  which  Abram  actually  origi- 
nated— presents  not  only  a  record  of  early 
national  enterprise,  but  a  mingling  of  nation- 
al elements,  not  disentangled  till  in  very 
recent  times,  and  now  perhaps  but  in  part. 
But  thus  much  appears  to  be  settled.  The 
name  Shinar  is  the  same  with  the  Sumir  of 
the  inscriptions,  now  revived  in  the  name 
applied  to  the  Sumirian  language  and  race, 
which  is  also  by  some  identified  with,  and 
by  others  distinguished  from,  the  Accadian, 
and  belongs  to  a  Scythian  or  Turanian  race, 
which  seems  by  modern  researches  to  have 
preceded  the  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  races 
in  these  regions.  They  were  the  original 
proprietors  of  the  cuneiform  alphabet.  The 
latest  researches  also  show,  by  their  side  or 
as  their  successors  on  this  soil,  a  powerful 
Cushite  race  as  set  forth  in  the  sacred  narra- 
tive.^* But  at  an  early  date  it  is  also  certain 
that  a  Semitic  race,  represented  by  the  in- 
scriptions in  the  Assyrian  language,  was 
found  on  the  soil  of  Chaldea,  whom  some 
(Geo.  Smith)  have  supposed  to  have  mas- 
tered the  eai'lier  Turanians  even  before  this 
'■»  Maspero,  "Histoire,"  p.  145. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      IGl 

Cushite  invasion.  It  is  difficult  to  determine 
relative  dates.  But  the  fundamental  fact  of 
the  record  has  emerged  in  recent  times,  that 
the  three  great  families,  Shem,  Ham  and  Ja- 
pheth,  were  early  and  strangely  mingled  on 
this  ancient  territory.  It  was  hinted  at  long 
after  by  the  Chaldean  historian  Berosus: 
"There  were  at  first  a  great  number  of  men 
of  different  races  who  had  colonized  to  Chal- 
dea."^'  And  this  early  mingling  of  races  in 
Chaldea  in  part  accounts  for  the  difficulties 
that  overhang  the  question  of  the  so-called 
"  Semitic "  tongues,  which  evidently  were 
spoken  by  some  non-Semitic  nations.  The 
complication  would  seem  to  have  been  in- 
creased or  continued  by  subsequent  proximi- 
ties or  interminglings  of  the  Semitic  and 
Hamitic  races,  as  in  Palestine,  Northern  Af- 
rica, and  perhaps  in  Arabia  and  Abyssinia " 
— the  record  in  the  first  two  cases  being  also 
furnished  in  the  Pentateuch.  In  the  city 
Accad  remains  a  relic  of  the  name  by  which 
one  portion  of  the  early  Turanian  people  and 
their  speech  were  known — Accadian;  and 
as  some  aver  in  its  significance  "  mountain  " 
(as  contrasted  with  Sumir,  "plain")  a  remi- 
niscence of  the  mountainous  region  of  Ar- 

'8  Tompkins,  "Times  of  Abraham,"  p.  7. 
»e  Ih.  p.  52. 


162      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

menia  which  was  their  still  earlier  home.^ 
Let  me  only  add  that  of  the  ancient  Erech 
we  have  the  well-known  primitive  ruins  in 
the  mounds  of  Warka. 

It  was  from  this  land  of  Chaldea,  south  of 
Babylonia,  and  from  its  ancient  city  of  Ur, 
now  identified  beyond  reasonable  doubt  with 
Mugheir,  that  the  most  eventful  migration 
took  place  that  the  world  has  seen — that  of 
Abram,  the  Hebrew.  With  him  came  up  the 
spiritual  hopes  and  destinies  of  the  nations. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  the  aggressions  of 
Elam,  of  which  the  same  record  gives  the 
oldest  information,  may  have  enforced  the 
divine  call  "to  get  him  forth."  He  followed 
up  the  Euphrates  by  the  route  so  common  in 
ancient  times,  the  earliest  known  traveller 
over  that  famous  route,  in  preference  to  a 
journey  across  the  difficult  western  desert, 
and  for  some  unknown  reason  he  paused  in 
Charran.  The  time  appears  from  many  in- 
dications to  have  been  one  of  very  general 
unrest  among  the  nations.  And  while  he  was 
in  Charran,  it  has  been  shown  that  the  host  of 
"  Chedorlaoraer  and  his  tributaries  must  have 
marched  through  to  their  distant  conquests," 
and  "  Abram's  eyes  probably  looked  upon  the 
long  array  of  Elam,  Larsa,  Shinar  and  Goiim, 
1''  Leuormant,  "Chaldean  Magic,"  p.  360. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      1G3 

with  whicli  thirteen  years  later  he  was  so 
suddenly  to  be  engaged  in  deadly  conflict."  " 
We  follow  him  next  down  through  the  land 
of  Syria  over  the  great  route,  now  first  men- 
tioned in  history,  by  Damascus,  (also  first 
appearing  here  and  represented  in  his  stew- 
ard, Eliezer  of  Damascus),  passing  "  through 
the  land,"  the  oldest  Palestinian  traveller  on 
record,  pausing  at  Shechem  at  the  plain  or 
rather  the  oaks  of  a  place  now  emerging  into 
history,  and  again  at  a  point  between  Bethel 
and  Ai,  and  so  onward  south.  When  the 
famine  finds  him,  he  pushes  on  over  that  im- 
memorial route,  now  first  indicated,  through 
the  south  country  to  Egypt,  and  gives  us  the 
first  historic  glimpse  of  the  civilization  of 
that  mighty  people.  We  find  him,  and  after- 
ward his  son,  in  the  Negeb,  or  South  country, 
of  which  we  know  through  them  and  through 
those  remarkable  ruins  and  relics  alone,  that 
it  was  once  filled  with  cultivation  and  popu- 
lation. It  had  already  received  its  geographic 
name  Negeb,  which  appears  a  little  later  as 
"  Nekeb  "  among  the  conquests  of  Thothmes 
III.  Witli  him  once  more  we  stand  at  Bethel, 
and  with  Lot  we  look  from  the  sightly  emi- 
nence east  of  Betliel  over  the  land  of  Pulestinc, 
and  see  the  fertility  of  the  tropical  plain  below, 
iu  its  wicked  civilization.  With  Abram's  eye 
'8  Tompkins,  p.  58. 


164      HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

of  faith  we  also  look  from  the  place  where  he 
was,  "  northward  and  southward  and  eastward 
and  westward,"  over  the  land  of  distant  prom- 
ise. The  whole  scene  stands  out  before  us, 
by  glimpses,  in  connection  with  this  personal 
history  of  those  times;  later  described  in  the 
same  Pentateuch  as  "  a  good  land,  a  land  of 
brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and  depths  that 
spring  out  of  the  valleys  and  hills,  a  land 
of  wheat  and  barley  and  vines  and  fig-trees 
and  pomegranates,  a  land  of  oil  olive  and 
honey  "  (Deut.  viii.  7);  now  in  Abraham's  time 
a  pastoral  country  in  great  measure,  sprinkled 
with  flocks  and  herds,  and  traversed  already 
by  a  great  travelled  route  from  north  to  south, 
tending  to  Egypt,  apparently  with  its  stages 
and  halting  places  even  then  somewhat  as 
now.  The  whole  scene  is  before  our  eyes. 
Here  and  there  as  at  Hebron,  Shechem,  Jeru- 
salem, some  tribe  had  made  its  central  seat, 
probably  as  yet  with  little  show  of  fortifica- 
tion. Of  one-  of  these,  Hebron,  curiously 
enough,  we  have  the  very  date  given,  "  seven 
years  older  than  Zoan  oft  Egypt."  The  main 
portion  of  the  territory  would  seem  to  have 
been  otherwise  then  open  for  the  unhindered 
passage  of  a  military  force.  But  the  chief 
permanent  population  was  apparently  outside 
the  mountainous  centre  of  Palestine — along 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      165 

the  coast  around  Sidon,  in  the  Ghor  where 
were  Hazezon  Tamar  and  the  cities  of  the  plain 
— Sodom  being  even  a  city  with  "  a  gate  " — 
beyond  the  Jordan  from  Ashteroth  Karnaim 
to  Mt.  Seir  and  El  Paran,  as  well  as  about 
Damascus  north,  and  around  Beersheba,  in 
Gei'ar  and  the  region  south  of  Palestine. 
They  could,  as  at  Kirjath  Arba,  convey  land 
by  regular  sale  "  with  the  trees  thereon." 
Here  and  there  the  eye  falls  on  oak  or  tere- 
vinth  groves,  as  at  Shechem,  Mamre  and  El 
Paran.  Beersheba  may  have  been  as  desti- 
tute of  trees  then  as  to-day;  for  there  Abram 
planted  a  grove  or  a  tree, — an  act  which 
as  clearly  distinguishes  him  from  the  Arab 
Sheikh  of  Dean  Stanley,  as  did  the  wells 
which  he  and  Abimelech  dug  at  Beersheba. 
In  this  bird's-eye  glimpse  of  the  location  of 
the  nations  in  Palestine,  there  comes  before 
us  one  remarkable  character, — a  veritable 
priest  of  the  Most  High  God, — one  who,  out- 
side the  line  of  Abram  had  so 'kept  alive  the 
sacred  fire  that  Abram  himself  was  blessed 
by  him  and  paid  him  tithes.  It  is  a  strange- 
ly suggestive  apparition;  without  recorded 
father  or  mother,  beginning  of  priestly  years 
or  end  of  days,  he  passes  before  us  like  a  bird 
darting  through  a  lighted  room,  from  the 
dark  into  the  dark  again 


166       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

In  Abram's  favorable  reception  in  Egypt  we 
perhaps  get  a  glimpse  of  the  Asiatic  relation 
already  begun  in  the  conquest  by  the  Hyksos 
or  Shepherd  Kings  of  Egypt.  For  Brugsch 
Bey  now  derives  these  Hyksos  from  Elam  and 
Media,  averring  that  he  has  found  the  Egyp- 
tain  name  of  "  Menti "  applied  to  those  locali- 
ties. The  national  departure  had  taken  place 
already.  And  if  we  suppose  that  the  oppres- 
sive influences  in  their  own  neighboring  home 
had  sent  forth  these  singular  adventurers  to 
Egypt,  we  can  understand  the  sympathetic 
bond  which  secured  the  patriarch  an  honorable 
welcome  in  Egypt  and  a  safe  departure,  though 
rightly  rebuked.  The  same  tendency  to  Egypt 
and  kindly  reception  which  is  here  narrated 
is  also  illustrated  in  that  famous  picture  of 
the  Asiatic  company  of  thirty-seven  Amu  hon- 
orably received  in  the  days  of  Osirtasen  II., 
and  whom  Lepsius  has  perhaps  rightly  de- 
scribed as  the  "  predecessors  of  the  Hyksos," 
a  "mighty  Hyksos  family  who  pray  to  be  re- 
ceived into  the  blessed  land,  and  whose  de- 
scendants perhaps  opened  the  gates  of  Egypt 
to  the  Semitic  conquerors  allied  to  them  by 
race."  "  This  could  not  have  been  relatively 
many  years — possibly  two  centuries — before 
Abram's  own  reception. 

'9  Lepsius,  "Letters  from  Egypt,"  p.  112. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      167 

j\Ieantime  from  the  Egyptian  side  of  this 
migratory  and  predatory  movement,  Abram's 
history  once  more  carries  us  to  the  eastern 
side,  from  whence  tlie  tribes  were  thus  already 
crowding  on  their  neighbors.  Some  years 
later — we  know  not  how  many — we  find  the 
king  of  Elam  and  his  confederates  enforcing 
a  previous  tribute  upon  the  distant  tribes  of 
Palestine.  We  will  not  pause  to  inquire 
whether  the  name  Chedorlaomer,  can  be  iden- 
tified with  Kudur-Mabuk,  or  Kudur-Lagamar, 
as  Mr.  Tompkins  still  supposes.  But  of  these 
nations  thus  allied  we  find  the  king  of  Elam 
now  at  the  head,  as  the  liege  lord  and  master ; 
for  it  was  he  whom  the  five  cities  of  Palestine 
had  served  for  twelve  years  and  against  whom 
they  had  now  rebelled.  Accordingly  we  find 
it  recorded  in  the  annals  of  Assurbanipal,  king 
of  Assyria,  that  only  in  his  day  had  he,  the 
king  of  Assyria,  by  conquest  of  Elam  brought 
back  from  Susa  an  image  of  Nana  which 
an  Elamite  monarch  (Kudur-nankhundi)  had 
carried  off"  from  Babylonia  1635  years  before, 
i.  e.,  near  three  hundred  years  prior  to  Abram's 
emigration.  It  had  been  a  long-established 
ascendancy  and  aggressiveness  of  Elam  and  at 
length  in  Abram's  time  it  had  swept  across 
the  desert  into  Syria  and  Palestine.  With  this 
powerful  Elamite  king  was  now  associated,  as 


168       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

his  inferior  and  ally  only,  the  king  of"  Shinar. 
Arioch  king  of  EUasar  was  also  of  the  com- 
pany. And,  curiously  enough,  not  only  has 
liis  capital  city  Larsa  (now  Senkereh  on  the 
east  of  the  Euphrates)  been  identified,  but 
Eriaku,  the  same  with  the  Hebrew  Arioch,  is 
found  to  be  the  son  of  Kudur-Mabuk  and  to 
have  dwelt  in  Larsa.  The  fourth  of  these 
royal  aggressors.  Tidal  king  of  "Goiim,"  is  less 
definitely  localized  either  in  the  narrative  or 
the  inscriptions,  Guti  or  Gutium,  both  of  which 
sources  favor  the  idea  that  his  monarchy  was 
over  less  consolidated  tribes  to  the  north.  But 
in  striking  correspondence  to  and  explanation 
of  this  consecutive  narrative,  the  inscriptions 
disclose  great  expeditions  of  Kudur-Mabuk 
and  Arioch,  with  conquests  in  Syria,  whereby 
the  former  attained  the  title  "  lord  of  Martu  " 
i.  e.,  of  the  god  of  the  West;  and  Kawlinson, 
Sayce  and  Lenormant  all  bring  the  date  singu- 
larly close  to  the  time  of  Abraham  (Kawlinson 
2100  B.  c,  Sayce  2000,  Lenormant  "approxi- 
mately to  the  time  of  Abraham.""  This  tale 
of  conquest  might  apply  to  the  time  twelve 
years  before  when  the  valley  kings  were  made 
tributary,  probably  in  the  greater  campaign 
through  Syria  as  well  as  Palestine.  For  in 
the  second  campaign  a  more  humiliating  fate 
awaited  them. 

20  Tompkins,  "Times  of  Abraham,"  p.  180. 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      169 

We  follow  these  fighting  nations  this  second 
time  as  they  come,  evidently  in  force,  over  the 
commercial  and  military  track,  ascending  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates  and  crossing  it  at  Bir, 
or  more  likely  at  Jerabolus,  the  ancient  Car- 
chemish,  pushing  south-westerly  over  the  deep 
valley  of  the  Orontes  at  "the  entrance  of  Ha- 
math  "  (twice  mentioned  in  our  Pentateuch) — 
that  ancient  place  where  are  found  strange  in- 
scriptions perhaps  of  the  veritable  Hittite  race. 
Passing  by  Damascus,  out  of  our  sight,  they 
emerge  on  the  east  side  of  Jordan  in  Bashan, 
striking  first  the  Rephaim  at  an  unknown  point, 
then  the  Zuzim, — wholly  lost  to  history — at 
Ham,  probably  Hamitat,  just  east  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  then  Shaveh  Kiriathaim,  "  the  plain  of  the 
two  cities,"  now  also  lost  out  of  knowledge  un- 
less the  name  of  the  tribe  of  Emims  be  found 
in  the  travels  of  Mohar,  "  Mat-amim,"  land  of 
Emim.  Then  we  find  them  at  Seir  among 
the  Horites,  the  troglodytes.  They  had  taken 
Avhat  is  since,  and  may  have  been  then,  the 
great  commercial  roiite  to  Arabia.  Still  they 
pushed  on  down  along  the  route  of  the  Ghor 
to  El  Paran,  not  noAv  definitely  known,  but  "  by 
the  wilderness."  What  was  their  aim  here? 
The  old  Egyptian  mines,  long  wrought  already? 
We  can  only  guess.  But  they  returned  by 
Kadesh — whether  the  Ain  Kades  of  Williams, 


170       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

the  Ain  el  Weibeh  of  Robinson,  or  some  still 
unknown  place.  It  was  a  long  expedition, 
and  must  have  called  for  no  little  skill  in  the 
arrangement,  as  well  as  vigor  in  the  prose- 
cution. And  now  having  cut  off  all  the  sur- 
rounding sources  of  help,  they  struck  what 
we  may  suppose  were  the  ricli  cities  of  the 
plain — for  here,  at  a  later  date,  in  Jericho  it 
was  that  Achan  hid  his  prize,  the  wedge  of 
gold  and  the  goodly  Babylonish  garment  or 
mantle.  They  carried  off  the  spoil.  And 
here  the  very  geography  and  condition  of  the 
region  is  put  on  record.  It  was  a  valley,  and 
bitumen  pits  were  there — where  bitumen  still 
is  found — and  a  mountain  region  for  the  sur- 
vivors to  escape. 

When  Abrara  joined  himself  to  Aner  and 
Kshcol  to  retake  his  nephew  Lot,  by  a  sort  of 
poetic  justice  he  was  arming  himself  against 
the  aggressors  that  had  oppressed  his  own 
native  land  of  Chaldea.  And  in  his  military 
tactics,  he  showed  himself  worthy  to  have 
been  reared — as  he  was — in  the  midst  of  war- 
like times.  From  the  opposite  range  of  hills, 
no  doubt — the  bold  headlands  of  Naphtali, 
south  of  lake  Huleh, — he  could,  as  he  ap- 
proached, see  the  enemy  resting  in  security 
and  carousing  over  his  spoil.     By  an  almost 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      171 

Napoleonic  promptness  and  skill  he  advanced 
upon  them  in  detachments,  struck  them  by 
night,  and  routed  them  beyond  Damascus. 

With  this  thorough  discomfiture  of  the 
former  chief  oriental  monarch  of  the  time,  of 
which,  of  course,  no  record  ever  mtIU  be  found 
in  the  boastful  inscriptions  of  Babylonia  or 
Assyria,  the  jviblic  movements  in  and  around 
the  old  hive  of  the  nations  are  left  in  silence 
for  many  centuries.  For  although  later  in  the 
life  of  Abraham,  and  again  through  twenty 
years  of  the  life  of  Jacob,  we  are  permitted  to 
look  into  the  heart  of  Padan  Aram,  it  is  ex- 
clusively a  vision  of  rural  and  family  scenes, 
without  a  reference  to  the  monarchy  or  the 
government,  except  as  Laban  asserts  in  one 
instance  a  controlling  custom  of  the  country. 

Not  so  meanwhile  in  other  lands.  We  have 
here  the  only  narrative  concerning  the  origin 
of  that  race  that  have  left  their  sole  memen- 
toes in  the  forsaken  ruins  of  Moab.  Here  also 
the  early  days  of  that  powerful  race  that  once 
warred  upon  Judea,  pillaged  her  capital,  by 
the  hand  of  its  Edomite  monarch,  Hei'od, 
struck  at  the  life  of  the  infant  Jesus,  and 
left  its  weird  city  Petra  to  be  discovered  in 
our  own  day  in  the  cleft  of  the  rocks,  in  ghast- 
ly desolation. 

Here   also   alone   are   exhibited  the   great 


172       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Arab  race  in  their  origin,  their  characteristics, 
their  early  central  location,  and  their  long 
and  peculiar  history.  The  sons  of  Ishmael 
had  their  dwelling  "  from  Havilah  unto  Shur 
that  is  before  Egypt  as  tliou  goest  toward  As- 
syria,"— where  we  observe  the  distinct  impli- 
cation of  early  travel  and  communication  be- 
tween the  two  lands, — in  the  region  where 
the  traveller  now  looks  upon  the  sons  of  Ish- 
mael in  their  purest,  almost  primitive  type. 
The  roving  Bedouin  to-day  fulfils  that  mar- 
vellously descriptive  prophetic  utterance,  "  He 
shall  be  a  wild-ass  man;  his  hand  shall  be 
against  every  man  and  every  man's  hand 
against  him;  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  brethren."  And  from  Havilah  to 
Shur  you  behold  him  to-day,  as  roving  and 
untamed  as  the  wild  ass,  and  dwelling  in  the 
presence  of  his  brethren.  "  Until  to-day  the 
Ishmaelites  are  in  undisturbed,  free  posses- 
sion of  the  great  peninsula  lying  between 
the  Euphrates,  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  and  the 
Eed  Sea,  from  whence  they  have  spread  over 
wide  districts  in  Northern  Africa  and  South- 
ern Asia"  (Delitzsch).  Ishmael  has  also  be- 
come, according  to  this  prophetic  utterance,  a 
great  nation,  and  more  than  "twelve  princes" 
have  sprung  from  his  stock.  "  Every  addi- 
tion to   our  knowledge,    of  Arabia  and  its 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS   OF  NATIONS.      173 

inhabitants,"  says  Kalisch,  "confirms  more 
strongly  the  Bibhcal  statements.  While  they 
have  carried  their  arms  beyond  their  native 
lands,  and  ascended  more  than  one  hundred 
thrones,  they  were  never  subjected  to  the  Per- 
sian empire.  The  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
kings  had  a  transitory  power  over  small  por- 
tions of  their  tribes.  Here  the  ambition  of 
Alexander  the  Great  and  his  successors  re- 
ceived an  insuperable  check,  and  a  Eoman 
expedition  in  the  time  of  Augustus  totally 
failed.  The  Bedouins  have  remained  essen- 
tially unaltered  since  the  times  of  the  He- 
brews and  the  Greeks."  Is  it  not  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  millions  that  speak  the 
Arabic  tongue  to-day? 

Passing  at  a  bound  over  some  two  hundred 
years  from  Abraham's  time,  the  Pentateuch 
opens  up  another  panorama  of  historic  vision. 
I  will  not  pause  to  dwell  upon  the  unfolding 
of  the  one  central  people,  ahd  the  sharp  de- 
fining of  the  whole  career  and  institutions 
that  have  so  ineffaceably  stamped  their  in- 
tense nationality  to  the  present  day.  Few 
men  consider  what  an  irreparable  loss  to  the 
world's  records  would  be  the  obliteration  of 
that  long  and  eventful  history  from  the 
world's  on-goings,  or  with  what  singular  and 
absolutely  unparalleled  definiteness  it  is  given 


174       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

US,  from  its  incipient  stages.  And  not  only 
as  a  clear  record  of  a  wonderful  national 
growth  and  source  of  moral  ilkimination  to 
the  world  is  it  a  Kvrjua  ii  dei,  but  meanwhile 
how  its  pages  beam  with  life,  and  what 
strange  personages  walk  across  its  scenes  in 
all  their  distinctness  of  delineation :  the  might}" 
and  majestic  Father  of  the  faithful,  the  wary 
and  versatile  head  of  the  twelve  tribes,  ripen- 
ing at  last  to  venerableness  and  beauty,  the 
fleckless  Joseph  and  the  colossal  law-giver, 
— how  they  stand  out  like  sunbeams  on  our 
sight. 

And  as  we  follow  their  journeyings  we  are 
still  enveloped  with  the  movements  of  the 
nations.  We  fall  upon  the  line  of  early  in- 
ternational trade  at  Dothan,  where  the  Midi- 
anite  or  Ishraaelitish  merchants  are  moving 
towards  luxurious  Egypt  with  their  camels, 
bearing  spices  and  balm  and  myrrh,  perhaps 
for  the  kitchen,  the  toilet,  the  medicine  chest, 
and  the  tomb,  and  where  they  pause  by  the 
way  to  buy  cheap  a  slave  for  the  house  of 
"  the  Captain  of  the  guard."  In  Egypt  we 
may  not  pause  to  look  around  upon  the  vivid 
scenes  of  sumptuous  court  life  here  delineated, 
ages  before  they  emerged  upon  modei'n  sight 
from  the  tombs.  But  we  get  clear  hints  of 
the  great  national  movements  of  which  we 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS   OF  NATIONS.      175 

are  in  search, — hints  quite  as  significant  as 
would  be  more  detailed  statements.  The  ele- 
vation of  a  foreigner  such  as  Joseph  to  a 
high  office,  suggests  the  fact  of  Egypt  being 
tiien  in  the  hands  of  foreign  invaders,  the 
Hyksos;  while  the  solicitude  to  provide  the 
Israelites  a  home  in  Goshen,  remote  from 
the  old  native  Egyptian  population,  and  be- 
cause "every  shepherd  is  an  abomination  to 
the  Egyptians,"  suggests  the  smouldering  and 
growing  hatred  of  that  dynasty,  that  only 
waited  for  its  time  under  Ahmes  to  drive 
them  forever  from  the  land.  The  reiterated 
intimation  to  the  ten  brethren,  "  Nay,  ye  are 
spies;  to  see  the  nakedness  of  the  land  ye  are 
come,"  hints  at  a  growing  sense  of  insecurity 
and  governmental  suspicion,  strongly  aroused 
and  fully  justified. 

When  at  length,  long  after  Joseph's  death, 
another  king  or  dynasty  arose  which  knew 
not  fJoseph,  we  are  reminded  at  once  of  that 
native  dynasty  of  ^lemphis  to  whom  the  event- 
ful story  of  Joseph  with  his  relations  at  On 
was  unknown  and  certainly  uncared  for.  And 
when  after  the  lapse  of  centuries,  the  children 
of  Israel  are  ground  down  with  their  labors  on 
the  strongholds  of  Egypt,  we  are  reminded  of 
that  line  of  fortresses  which  Seti  T.  and  Rameses 
II.  found  it  needful  to  string  along  the  eastern 


176       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

border  of  Egypt.  For  the  intermediate  con- 
quests of  the  great  warrior,  Thotmes  III.  had 
long  passed  by,  and  Rameses,  with  all  his  boast- 
ing of  victories,  had  roused  enemies  whom  h^ 
feared.  And  when  the  scepti*e  passed  or  was 
to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  feeble  Meneptha, 
we  can  well  understand  those  recorded  appre- 
hensions "  lest  they  [the  Israelites]  multiply, 
and  it  come  to  pass  that  when  there  falleth 
out  any  war  they  join  also  unto  our  enemies  and 
fight  against  us."  We  see  also  the  explana- 
tion of  that  great  body  of  troops  with  which, 
in  its  military  but  weakened  condition,  the 
monarch  found  it  needful  to  stand  always 
provided,  and  which  at  a  day's  warning  was 
in  readiness  to  follow  on  the  track  of  Israel. 
The  horsemen  and  chariots  speak  of  a  great 
national  change  since  the  days  of  camels  and 
asses — since  the  time  of  Abraham.  Possibly 
also  in  the  children  of  Israel's  march  out  of 
Egypt  in  orderly  array,  D''C'i7n,  and  in  the  di- 
vision on  the  march  into  thousands  and  hun- 
dreds with  their  captains  (Num.  xiv.  31) — into 
regiments  and  companies  with  their  regular 
commanders, — we  are  to  recognize  an  echo 
of  the  military  discipline  that  now  filled  the 
once  peaceful  kingdom,  as  it  does  Germany 
to-day,  and  that  responded  to  the  warlike 
movements  now  thoroughly  aroused  and  set- 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      177 

ting  toward   the  ultimately  doomed  country 
which  was  to  be  the  spoil  of  the  nations. 

And  on  the  march  of  Israel  we  encounter  a 
changed  state  of  affairs  from  the  day  when 
not  only  did  the  ten  brothers  pass  quietly 
over  the  old  caravan  road,  that  even  a  solitary 
woman  had  once  attempted  alone  with  her 
child,  Ishmael.  For  this  great  host  were  de- 
liberately turned  toward  the  Red  Sea  instead 
of  the  shorter  way  "  through  the  land  of  the 
Philistines"  to  Canaan,  "lest  perad venture  the 
people  repent  when  they  see  war,  and  they  re- 
turn to  Egypt"  (Ex.  xiii.  17).  The  change 
was  great  indeed.  The  powerful  Amalekites 
encounter  them  desperately  on  the  way,  al- 
though the  Egyptian  forces  at  the  mines 
seem  not  to  have  molested  them,  and  vic- 
tory was  gained  for  Israel  only  after  a  hard- 
fought  battle.  Edom  also  bristled  with  war- 
like preparations  and  defiance.  When  the 
misguided  nation  would  have  pushed  their 
way  north  from  Kadesh,  they  were  driven 
back  in  great  discomfiture  by  the  Amale- 
kites; anct  who  can  tell  but  that  the  oldest 
portion  of  the  ruined  fortresses  on  the  top  of 
Meshrifeh  may  be  part  of  the  stronghold  of 
Zophath,  or  Sebaita  "  on  the  hill  top,"  from 
which  these  "  Canaanites  smote  them  even 
unto  Hormah."     When  at  length  the  weary 


178       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

journey  had  brought  the  nation  by  a  circu- 
itous route  upon  the  flank  of  the  promised  land, 
even  here  were  new  and  strange  preparations. 
Jericho  was  now  enclosed  with  its  walls.  The 
hills  of  Palestine  were  covered  with  strong- 
holds, and  filled  with  fighting  men.  And  ir 
was  only  after  a  long  and  bitter  struggle  of 
conquest  that  the  warrior  Joshua  rested  on 
his  arms,  and  the  blessings  from  Gerizim  and 
the  curses  from  Ebal  came  swelling  and  thun- 
dering over  the  heads  of  the  people  as  they 
stood  awe-stricken  in  the  vale  of  Shechem  be- 
low ;  and  the  nation  had  peace,  although  many 
of  its  surrounding  foes  still  remained  to  be 
thorns  in  its  side. 

Thus  striking  in  themselves,  significant  in 
their  relations,  and  eventful  in  their  issues,  are 
the  national  movements  recorded  in  this  an- 
cient history.  We  catch,  not  a  glimpse,  but 
a  clear  and  steady  look  into  scenes  and  events 
so  far  away  as  to  be  completely  lost  out  of 
sight.  We  gaze  on  the  dead  past  and  it  comes 
to  life.  It  is  as  though  through  the  vacant 
space  we  point  some  great  telescope  toward  a 
seeming  blank  and  there  rises  before  us  a  new 
unseen  planet,  not  ofiering  us  a  dreary  range 
of  extinct  volcanoes  and  waterless  plains,  but 
filled  with  verdure  and  activity,  with  living 
men  and  women  engaged  in  all  their  daily 


EARLY  MOVEMENTS    OF  NATIONS.      179 

round.  Scenes  of  terror,  of  pathos  and  of  joy; 
the  march  of  armies,  the  clash  of  arms,  the 
shout  of  the  victor,  and  the  cry  of  the  van- 
quished; the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and  tlie 
lament  of  the  widowed  and  the  defiance  of  tlie 
criminal;  the  stern  command  of  the  mighty 
despot  and  the  beating  of  the  poor  downtrod- 
den slave;  the  fii'm  tread  of  the  individual  hero, 
the  quiet  footfall  of  the  moving  caravans,  tlie 
tramp  of  the  nations  as  they  march  to  their 
early  and  perhaps  their  later  homes,  the  din 
and  bustle  of  a  young  world  hurrying  hither 
and  thither  with  struggle  and  confusion  and 
strife,  come  reverberating  down  the  distant 
centuries  as  clear  and  fresh,  and  yet  as  softened 
too,  as  the  mingled  sounds  from  some  village 
below  rise  through  the  evening  air  to  the  ear 
of  the  wanderer,  as  he  pauses  to  listen  on  the 
neighboring  height. 


LECTURE   SIXTH. 


THE  EAKLY  DOCUMENTS. 


It  would  seem  to  be  hundreds  of  years,  and 
yet  it  is  less  than  forty,  since  even  so  good 
a  scholar  as  Prof.  Norton  ^  of  Harvard  College 
could  publish  to  the  world  his  doubts,  after 
Gesenius  and  De  Wette,  whether  the  art  of 
alphabetical  writing  was  known,  or  so  far  ad- 
vanced in  the  time  of  Moses  as  to  admit  of 
his  being  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch.  On 
the  contrary,  the  date  of  the  discovery  recedes 
beyoud  all  knowledge,  and  disappears  in  the 
njist.  In  Egypt  the  cautious  Wilkinson  finds 
the  hieroglyphic  writing  upwards  of  2500  years 
B.  c,  and  passing  into  the  hieratic  about  2240 
B.  c. ;  Lepsius,  witli  larger  numbers,  speaks  of 
a  "perfectly  formed  system  and  a  universal 
habit  of  writing  between  three  and  four  thou- 
sand years  before  Christ."  In  Chaldea  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  ascend  to  at  least  the- 

'  Norton's  "Genuineness  of  the  Gospels,"  vol.  ii.  Note 
D.,  p.  c.  Second  Ed.,  1848. 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS  181 

time  of  King  Lig-bagas,  assigned  by  some 
(H.  C.  Torakins)  to  2700,  and  by  Sayce'  to 
about  3000  years  before  the  Christian  era.  It 
is  mostly  syllabic,  and  is  considered  to  have 
been  derived  from  hieroglyphic  signs  of  its 
own. 

It  is  from  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  di- 
rectly or  through  its  hieratic  form,  as  is  now 
generally  conceded,  that  the  Phenician  and 
thence  the  Grecian  alphabet  came — the  al- 
phabet, properly  so-called,  of  letters,  fixed. 
"M.  de  Rouge,"  says  Maspero,  "proved  that 
at  the  time  when  the  Shepherds  reigned  in 
Egypt,  the  Canaanites  had  selected,  among 
the  forms  of  cursive  writing,  a  certain  num- 
ber of  characters  corresponding  to  the  funda- 
mental sounds  of  their  language.  His  dem- 
onstration, reproduced  in  Germany  by  Lauth, 
Brugsch  and  Ebers,  was  considered  decisive, 
and  the  results  have  been  generally  accepted. 
The  Phenician  alphabet  is  composed  of  twenty- 
two  letters,  of  which  fifteen  are  so  little  changed 
that  we  recognize  at  a  glance  their  Egyptian 
prototype,  and  the  remainder  ascend  to  the 
hieratic  type  without  violence  to  the  laws 
of  probability."  ^  This  adaptation  was  the  work 
of  a  business  people,  and  a  stroke  of  commer- 

2  "Chaldean  Genesis,"  p.  24. 

■5  Maspero,  "Histoire  Ancienne,"  p.  600. 


182      HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

cial  genius.  "  The  Pheniciaii  alphabet,"  con- 
tinues Maspero,  "first  used  in  Canaan,  became 
modified  according  to  localities,  and  formed 
successively  the  Aramean,  Palmyrene,  and 
Hebrew  alphabets.  Carried  by  the  Sidonians 
and  Tyrians  into  the  countries  where  com- 
merce led  them,  it  became  the  common  stock 
from  which  were  detached  all  [nearly  all]  the 
alphabets  of  the  known  world  from  India  and 
Mongolia  to  Gaul  and  Spain" — not  including 
the  extreme  east  and  extreme  west. 

How  early  the  Phenician  or  Canaanite — 
which  is  of  course  the  Hebrew — alphabet 
vas  in  use,  we  canuot  tell.  It  was  in  use 
■H  Canaan,  say  the  Egyptologists,  during  the 
Hyksos  dynasty.  Nor  can  we  say  with  ab- 
solute confidence  how  early  any  of  the  mat- 
ters contained  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch were  committed  to  writing.  There  is 
not  only  ingenuity  but  weight  in  the  sug- 
gestion of  Herder*  that  such  lists  of  names 
as  form  the  early  genealogical  tables  carry 
with  them  the  necessity  of  writing  to  pre- 
serve them.  He  even  suggests,  and  not  witli- 
out  show  of  reason,  that  the  very  effort  to 
preserve  such  tables  may  have  been  the  ne- 
cessity which  led  to  the  invention  of  early 
writing.     "If,"  says  he,  "alphabetic  writing 

*  Herder's  "  Spirit  of  Hebrew  Poetry,"  i.  25i-7. 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  183 

was  ever  to  be  invented,  it  must  be  brought 
about  by  reason  of  something  simple,  some- 
tliing  very  definite  and  very  indispensable, 
which  could  not  be  expressed  by  images. 
Now  names  exhibit  these  very  conditions; 
and  it  is  a  fact  that  names  and  genealogi- 
cal registers  constitute  the  earliest  tradi- 
tions of  the  primeval  world."  He  suggests 
that  the  fifth  chapter  of  Genesis  may  have 
been,  with  its  names  and  numbers,  the  first 
tablet  of  thought  in  articulate  sounds  and 
"  transmitted  through  Noah  to  Shem,  as  the 
meaning  of  the  latter  name  might  denote." 
If  we  do  not  fully  adopt  this  opinion,  we  may 
recognize  the  seemingly  insuperable  necessity 
that  such  a  series  of  otherwise  disconnected 
words  should  be  handed  down  by  written 
record.  "These  registers,"  Herder  strikingly 
remarks,  "are  the  historical  archives  of  the 
Orientals,  and  the  historical  traditions  are 
the  commentary."  And  in  speaking  of  the 
history  before  the  Deluge  he  says,  "it  passes 
obviously  into  a  mere  record  of  significant 
names,  genealogical  records  and  family  tra- 
ditions mingled  together;  and  here  too  its 
poverty  is  a  pledge  of  its  truth."* 

If  the  Phenician  alphabet  was  introduced 
into  Palestine  only  in  the  time  of  the  Shepherd 
6  Jh.  i.  p.  254. 


184      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Kings  of  Egypt,  it  would  appear  that  though 
Abraham  would  have  found  it  already  there, 
yet  he  did  not  learn  it  there;  for  he  himself 
came  up  from  a  land  that  had  known  the  art 
of  writing  some  hundred  years — five  hundred, 
if  we  were  to  adopt  Sayce's  date — earlier  than 
the  earliest  of  those  Kings  [about  2200  b.  c, 
the  beginning  of  the  Shepherd  reigns,  accord- 
ing to  Brugsch].  How  far  back  in  the  line 
of  Abraham's  ancestry  written  memorials  of 
the  kind  indicated  may  have  existed,  we  can 
hardly  even  conjecture.  There  is  nothing  in- 
credible in  the  supposition  that  wiiting  may 
have  been  an  antediluvian  invention,  but  some 
things  to  favor  it.  Surely  the  general  skill  in 
the  arts  would  be  in  keeping  with  it;  the  very 
process  of  constructing  a  vessel  five  hundred 
and  seventeen  feet  long  would  imply  some 
species  of  notation ;  and  the  genealogical  tables, 
with  the  definite  numbers,  in  the  fifth  of  Gen- 
esis, would  seem  almost  to  have  necessitated 
it.  And  a  noticeable  indication  of  evident 
but  fossilized  mistake  in  copying,  (which  how- 
ever would  naturally  have  been  limited  to  a 
script  like  the  Hebrew  or  Phenician,)  is  found 
in  Gen.  iv.  18,  where  ^J^^^ntp  is  changed  at 
once  to  ?^?^'i^'?. 

And  let  me  here  remark  in  passing  that  the 
admission  of  such  ancient  genealogies  into 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  185 

the  Pentateuch  is  no  more  peciiliar  than  the 
admission  of  the  much  longer  genealogies, 
evidently  from  the  tribal  records,  into  the 
Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke.  Indeed  the 
similarity  of  the  phenomena  might  indicate 
similarity  of  origin  and  give  color  to  the 
suggestion  of  Herder  that  in  the  genealo- 
gies of  Genesis  v.  we  have  the  transcript 
of  an  early  recorded  table. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  fix  at  once  upon  other 
portions  of  the  early  history  which  have  the 
appearance  of  coming  down  from  a  far  great- 
er antiquity  than  the  time  of  Moses,  substan- 
tially in  their  present  form.  Without  seeking 
for  other  possible  instances  in  the  preceding 
narratives  with  their  d';ra|  \Eyoi.iEva.,  the  mind 
fixes  at  once  on  the  account  of  the  Deluge, 
and  that  of  Abraham's  warlike  expedition, 
in  the  history  of  the  Deluge,  when  one  reads 
not  merely  the  steady  announcement  of  defi- 
nite numbers,  and  that  not  alone  in  the  di- 
mensions of  the  ark,  the  time  of  the  rain  and 
of  the  prevalence  of  the  water,  and  the  height 
of  the  water,  the  several  intervals  of  waiting 
and  the  age  of  Noah,  but  the  reiterated,  mi- 
nute and  emphatic  exactness,  such  as  the  six 
hundredth  year,  second  month,  seventeenth 
day  of  the  month  "  in  the  bone  of  that  day," 
the  seventh  month  and  seventeenth  day  of 


186       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

the  month,  tenth  month  and  first  day,  six 
hundred  and  first  year,  first  month,  first  day, 
second  month,  seven  and  twentieth  day — 
and  still  more  all  the  marks  of"  a  personal 
beholding  and  participation,  as  when  the 
waters  increased  and  first  "  bare  np  the  ark  " 
and  "  it  was  lifted  up  above  the  earth,"  then 
the  waters  prevailed  and  inci'eased  "  greatly, 
greatly "  till  "  the  ark  walked  upon  the  face 
of  the  waters,"  and  still  they  prevailed  "  till  all 
the  high  hills  under  the  whole  heaven  were 
covered,"  and  the  mountains  were  covered — 
then  how  the  waters  decreased,  and  in  the 
first  day  of  the  month  "the  tops  of  the  moun- 
tains were  seen; "  then  all  the  vivid  minute- 
ness of  detail,  opening  the  ivindoio  to  send  the 
raven,  and  afterwards  the  dove,  putting  forth 
his  hand  and  pulling  her  in  unto  him,  sending 
her  once  more  and  on  her  return  "  ?o,  in  her 
mouth  an  olive-leaf  fresh-plucked  " — once  more 
removing  the  covering,  looking,  "and  behold 
the  face  of  the  ground  was  dry" — I  say,  in  all 
the  exactness  and  minuteness  of  this  pre- 
Kaphaelite  painting,  how  can  one  fail  to  feel 
the  presence  of  a  contemporary  record,  or,  as 
some  have  called  it,  a  log-book.  And  further- 
more, when  one  considers  the  exactness  of 
statement  in  regard  to  such  a  multiplicity 
of  details,  and  contrasts  the  sobriety  and  con- 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  187 

sistency  of  this  simple  narrative,  with  tlie 
dimness,  the  inconsistencies  and  the  extrava- 
gances of  that  multitude  of  traditional  ac- 
counts of  the  Deluge  that  are  found  scattered 
through  every  part  of  the  world,  it  is  not 
easy  to  see  how  it  could  have  been  thus  kept 
in  its  integrity  except  as  placed  on  record 
at  no  distant  date  from  the  transactions  so 
carefully  recorded. 

So  of  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis 
— when  one  looks  at  its  wholly  detached 
completeness,  at  its  several  peculiarities  of 
diction  and  utterance,  including  its  men- 
tion of  Abraham  as  "  the  Hebrew,"  and  espe- 
cially at  the  double  set  of  names  whereby 
terms  which  were  obsolete  in  Moses'  time  are 
explained  by  their  later  equivalents,  coming 
down,  however,  no  further  than  his  day,  unless 
in  the  case  of  Dan, — not  difficult  of  explana- 
tion,— he  cannot  well  dissent  from  Ewald's 
statement  that  "  all  the  indications  tend  to 
show  that  this  whole  piece  was  written  prior 
to  the  time  of  Moses."  ^  These  are  specimens 
of  what  may  be  freely  admitted  in  many  other 
instances  less  noticeable,  to  whatever  extent 
clear  indications  may  demand.  Although 
there  is  now  a  strong  tendency  to  accept  the 
theory  of  certain  leading  minds,  and  recog- 
6  «'Ge8chichte  von  Israel,"  vol.  i.  p.  80,  Note. 


188       HISTORY  IN  THE    PENTATEUCH. 

nize  an  Elohist,  two  Jehovists,  a  Deuterono- 
mist,  and  one,  or  more.,  "redactors,"  yet  cer- 
tainly nothing  can  be  more  dreary  and 
bewildering  than  the  attempt  to  harmonize 
or  even  to  tabulate  the  diversities  in  the  as- 
signment of"  the  respective  contributions,  from 
the  time  of  Astruc  to  that  of  Dillmann. 

And  here  let  it  be  observed  that  the  accept- 
ance and  incorporation  of  sucli  earlier  true 
narratives  into  the  history,  no  more  militates 
against  the  proper  Mosaic  authorship  of  that 
history,  than  the  introduction  of  large  extracts 
from  Bradford  or  Morton,  or  other  and  later 
sources  of  contemporary  information,  inter- 
feres with  the  proper  authorship  of  a  history 
of  the  United  States  by  Bancroft;  and  when 
this  latter  historian,  recording  with  quotations 
a  condensed  statement  of  the  establishment 
of  Fort  du  Quesne  (iv.  117)  adds  "where  now 
is  Pittsburgh,"  he  almost  exactly  imitates  the 
Hebrew  historian,  in  Gen  xiv.  with  a  mere 
substitution  of  the  English  idiom.' 

7  Thus  Professor  C.  A.  Briggs,  who  somewhat  distinctly 
assents  to  the  general  analysis  of  the  Pentateuch  and  Josh- 
ua into  four  principal  documents  combined  by  a  "redac- 
tor" or  editor  and  compiler,  makes  this  very  decided 
statement:  "There  is  nothing  in  this  variation  of  docu- 
ments as  such  to  require  that  they  should  be  successive 
and  separated  by  wide  intervals,  or  that  would  prevent 
their  being  nearly  contemporaneous.     There  is  nothing 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  189 

It  may  also  be  added  that  very  probably 
the  incorporation  of  earlier  narratives  explains 
many  characteristic  forms  of  phraseology,  and 
will,  as  has  been  so  often  argued,  in  part  ac- 
count for  the  diverse  names  of  God  which 
appear  conspicuously  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  Pentateuch.  I  say,  in  part.  For  so  far 
as  appears,  no  theory  that  has  been  advanced 
fully  explains  the  facts.  For  after  more  than 
three  quarters  of  a  century  of  the  ablest  and 
most  searching  discussion,  the  following  facts 
are  to  be  observed:  (1)  The  lack  of  any 
absolute  or  general  agreement  among  the 
anatomists  of  the  Pentateuch  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  parts  of  which  it  is  formed;  (2)  still 
less  agreement  in  the  assignment  of  the  sev- 
eral portions  to  their  supposed  originals;  (3) 
and  no  thoroughly  self-consistent  theory  of 
a  supposed  methodical  combination  of  doc- 
uments   in    whatever    mode,    has    yet    been 

in  this  distinction  of  documents  as  such  that  forces  us  to 
abandon  the  Mosaic  age  as  the  time  of  their  origin.  The 
fault  of  the  supplementary  and  the  crystallization  hypoth- 
eses, is  in  their  attempts  to  determine  the  order  and  fix 
the  time  of  the  genesis  of  those  various  dociiments  that 
constitute  our  Pentateuch  and  spread  them  over  the  various 
periods  of  the  history  of  Israel.  The  evidences  on  which 
these  theories  are  built,  are  exceedingly  precarious." 
"Pres.  Eev."  vol.  iv.  p.  100.  To  these  faults  he  njight 
also  add,  with  equal  force,  the  attempt  to  determine  pre- 
cisely the  limits  of  the  documents  employed. 


190       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH 

broached — unless  it  is  some  such  "supple- 
mentary hypothesis"  as  virtually  recognizes 
one  proper  author.  Without  attempting  here 
the  details  of  a  volume  or  volumes,  it  is  suf- 
ficient to  say  that  all  these  theories,  however 
dexterously  adjusted,  break  down  in  the  ap- 
plication in  some  or  all  of  the  following 
modes:  (a)  the  actual  presence  and  sometimes 
preponderance  in  one  alleged  document  of 
terms  pronounced  characteristic  of  a  different 
one,  as  where  the  name  of  Jehovah  prevails 
over  that  of  Elohim  in  an  Elohistic  passage, 
especially  in  the  later  books  of  the  Pentateuch ; 
(6)  the  abrupt  introduction  of  alleged  charac- 
teristic words  in  narratives  alleged  to  be  of  a 
different  origin  (as  Jehovah,  Gen.  vii.  IG, 
xvii.  1,  and  many  other  words  and  phrases); 
(c)  the  continual  abundant  cross  references  of 
each  respective  portion  to  statements  con- 
tained in  the  other  alleged  class  of  documents 
— as  of  the  Elohistic  to  the  Jehovistic,  and 
vice  versa;  id)  and  finally,  excessive  and  un- 
reasonable dissections  and  dismemberments 
of  closely  connected  passages,  required  in 
order  to  make  even  this  show  of  a  case." 

8  Thus,  Gen.  xxxvii.  has  thirty  verses  which  Davidson 
(after  Boehmer)  divides  into  thirty-two  fragments,  and 
KnoGel  into  nine.  Gen.  xli.  is  analyzed  by  Davidson  into 
forty-two   fragments,    by   Knobel    into    twenty-two,    and 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  191 

And  a  man  of  sober  judg-ment,  wliile  freely 
admitting  the  use  of  other  materials,  yet  when 
he  ponders  the  diverse  and  ever-changing  hy- 
pntlieses,  the  conflicting  results,  and  especially 
the  arbitrary  devices  by  which  they  are  largely 
maintained,  as  well  as  the  uses  to  which  they 
are  appUed,  may  be  pardoned  for  questioning 
wdiether  the  great  body  of  these  bold  specula- 
tors are  not  more  earnestly  bent  on  establish- 
ing an  ingenious  theory  than  ascertaining  the 
very  truth.  For  be  it  observed,  we  do  not 
dispute  the  use  of  previous  material,  by  what- 
ever of  several  names  designated,  though  we 
may  demur  to  the  unwarranted  inferences 
from  it,  and  the  capricious  minuteness  of  the 
schemes  that  are  erected  upon  it. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we  insist  on 
the  opinion  that  the  characteristic  names  of 
God,  for  example,  were  in  each  and  every 
case  selected  in  accordance  with  some  con- 
scious plan.     Doubtless  in  many  instances  a 

by  Dillmann  (Knobel's  editor  in  1875)  it  is  regarded  as 
chiefly  by  one  writer  with  nine  insertions,  sometimes  of  a 
verse  and  twice  of  two  or  three  words  only.  Schrader 
(in  1876)  finds  in  ch.  xlvii.  some  nine  different  portions, 
although  in  two  instances  (vs.  11  and  27)  they  consist  each 
oHwo  words  from  the  Elohist,  etc.  Meanwhile  and  last  oi 
all  Kuenen  and  Wellhansen  come  forward  to  reverse  all 
preceding  dates  and  make  the  Elohistic  portions  later 
thau  the  Jehovistic. 


192      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

definite  reason  existed  for  using  (for  example) 
the  name  of  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  revelation 
and  of  covenant.  Thus  we  may,  if  we  choose, 
suppose,  with  Kalisch  (on  Genesis)  and  even 
Knobel,  that  the  change  in  Gen.  ii.  4  from 
Elohim  to  Jehovah-Elohim  was  made  with 
the  design  to  indicate  that  the  God  of  crea- 
tion was  the  revealed  God  of  the  Jews,  Je- 
hovah. But  the  failure  of  any  theory  fairly 
to  explain  all  the  cases  brings  us  to  the 
no-theory  that  while  the  distinct  accounts 
already  in  existence  may  have  suggested 
diverse  phraseology,  yet,  in  the  main,  the 
choice  of  the  divine  names  was  a  matter  of 
unconscious  influence,  much  like  the  selection 
of  the  names  of  the  Saviour,  whether  Christ 
Jesus  or  Jesus  Christ. 

Now  the  recognition  of  such  things  incor- 
porated in  the  Pentateuch  in  no  way  affects  the 
view  that  the  law-giver,  Moses,  was  directly  or 
indirectly  the  responsible  author  of  the  book 
— unless  it  were  shown  that  these  embodied 
documents  were  certainly  later  than  his  time. 

And  this  leads  to  the  remark  that  the  at- 
tempts to  invalidate  the  traditional  view  in 
regard  to  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch 
may  all  be  characterized  as  efforts  to  set  aside 
the  usual  laws  of  evidence  by  evasions  and 
side-issues, — chiefly    unwarranted    inferences 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  103 

or  unfounded  assertions.  Fn  other  words,  thev 
steadily  divert  the  attention  from  the  central 
features  of  the  case  to  a  maze  of  minor  discus- 
sions, either  without  bearing  on  the  question 
or  unsupported  by  satisfactory  proof  We  are 
not  to  be  diverted  by  a  labyrinth  of  petty  as- 
sumptions and  ingenious,  but  arbitrary,  sup- 
positions, from  the  great  decisive  features  of 
evidence,  which,  if  they  are  as  old  as  the  hills, 
are  also  as  firm.  The  great  principles  of  evi- 
dence cannot  be  set  aside. 

Now  glancing  rapidly  over  this  whole  field 
— which  is  all  I  can  do — when  we  look  at  the 
history  of  the  Pentateuch,  we  find  it  coming 
to  us  from  remote  antiquity  accredited  as  sub- 
stantially the  work  of  Moses,  in  the  same  way 
as  ancient  classic  writers  or  Josephus — with 
this  remarkable  difference,  that  the  books  of 
Moses  are  embedded  in  the  history  and  testi- 
mony and  institutions  of  a  whole  nation.  Nor 
had  any  other  authorship  ever  been  thought  of 

We  find  again  that,  so  far  as  any  claim  is 
put  forth  by  the  books  themselves,  it  is  for 
this  authorship  in  general.  'Deuteronomy  ex- 
pressly claims  throughout  to  be  Moses  words, 
and  in  xxxi.  9,  24-26  the  principal  part  of  it 
((;ertainly  xii.-xxvi.)  is  declared  to  have  been 
written  by  him.  In  four  previous  passages  in 
the  Pentateuch  (Ex.  xviii.  14;  xxiv.  4;  xxxi  v. 


194      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

27;  Num.  xxxiii.  2)  he  is  declared  to  have 
committed  certain  things  to  writing.  And 
not  only  is  the  law  of  Leviticus  again  and 
again  introduced  with  the  statement,  "the 
Lord  spake  unto  Moses,"  where,  too,  as  Pro- 
fessor Green  well  says,  "the  circumstances  of 
these  enactments  are  inseparably  united  with 
the  historical  narrative  of  the  time,"  but  in  a 
dozen  places  in  Deuteronomy  the  speaker 
Moses  refers  to  previous  enactments  of  Ex- 
odus, Leviticus,  Niimbers  as  given  hy  Mm.^ 
To  which  may  be  added  the  important  fact 
that  the  essential  and  systematic  unity  of 
the  present  Pentateuch  as  a  composition  is 
affirmed  by  such  analysts  as  Ewald,  Tuch, 
Knobel,  Hupfeld,  in  the  strongest  terms,  and 
is  too  obvious  to  be  disputed. 

Again,  the  existence  of  a  book  in  the  hands 
of  the  nation,  a  book  called  "  the  law,"  "  the 
law  of  Moses,"  "the  book  of  the  law,"  "the 
book  of  the  law  by  the  hand  of  Moses" — all 
the  same — can  be  traced  back — with  quota- 
tions identifying  it — from  the  New  Testa- 
ment through  Esdras,  Maccabees,  Ecclesias- 
ticus,  and,  with  more  or  less  distinctness, 
nearly  all  the  several  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment up  to  Joshua.'"     The  references  of  this 

9  Stebbins,  "Study  of  the  Pentateucb,"  pp.  184-6. 

10  Stebbins,  ib.  p.  83. 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  195 

kind  to  such  a  book  can  be  enumerated  by 
the  score,  and  the  undoubted  quotations  from 
and  allusions  to  its  contents,  specifically,  by 
the  hundred. 

Such  are  the  claims  and  testimonies.  And 
while  they  certainly  do  not  assert  in  set  terms 
that  every  portion  of  these  books  was  written 
down  by  Moses  or  by  his  amanuensis,  neither 
is  it  necessary  for  us  so  to  affirm.  For  while 
we  might  well  stand  firm  on  the  position  of 
Schultz,  that  Moses  was  both  the  Jehovist 
and  Deuteronomist,  using  the  older  Elohistic 
records  and  composing  the  whole  Pentateuch 
except  the  concluding  part  of  Deuteronomy 
(and  the  glosses  that  have  since  crept  in),  we 
might,  if  we  chose,  hold  with  Kurtz  that  the 
most  of  Deuteronomy  and  large  portions  of 
the  Pentateuch  being  written  by  Moses  in 
person,  the  remainder  was  arranged  and  com- 
piled under  his  direction  before  entering  the 
promised  land ;  or  perhaps  we  should  occupy 
no  unwai'rantable  position  if  we  held,  with 
Delitzsch  formerly,  that  the  completion  of  the 
whole  work,  of  whicli  Deuteronomy  and  much 
else  Avere  by  the  hand  of  Moses,  was  reserved 
for  one  or  more  of  his  trusted  associates,  as 
Eleazer  the  priest,  and  Joshua,  who  was  a 
prophet,  or,  some  one  of  the  elders  .on  wliom 
the  spirit  of  God  rested. 


196      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

With  this  explanation  I  proceed  to  remark 
succinctly,  how  the  original  and  unbroken 
testimony  that  Moses  is  responsible  for  the 
Pentateuch  is  confirmed  by  all  the  internal  in- 
dications of  which  the  case  naturally  admits. 

The  peculiarities  of  its  archaic  diction,  ex- 
hibiting, at  least  in  parts  of  it,  a  marked  dif- 
ference from  the  later  books,  except  as  those 
quote  or  refer  to  this  older  book,  have  been 
too  often  pointed  out  in  detail,  and  too  forci- 
bly asserted  by  scholars  whose  testimony  is 
not  to  be  disputed  (such  as  De  Wette,  Gesen- 
ius,  Ewald,  Delitzsch,'')  to  require  me  to  go 
into  details  here. 

In  connection  with  these  admitted  marks 
of  antiquity — often,  if  you  please,  a  higher 
antiquity  than  the  time  of  the  Exodus  and 
Moses — we  find  the  narrative  tinged  with  lan- 
guage that  belongs  only  to  the  intiuences  and 
circumstances  of  a  residence  in  Egypt.  The 
ancient  narrative  of  the  deluge  incorporates, 
as  given  to  us,  the  Egyptian  N^ri  Ibr  the  ark. 
The  narrative  of  Moses'  infancy  and  rescue, 
has  the  same  word,  and  three  others  of  Egyp- 

"  Thus  Delitzsch  writes  in  1877  ("  Preface  to  the  Leviti- 
cal  Priests,"  p.  10),  "The  so-called  Elohistic  language  is 
ancient  throughout;  there  is  no  trace  of  the  peculiar  post- 
exilic  forms  and  syntax."  But  this  Elohistic  portion  is 
that  which  it  is  now  attempted  to  place  after  the  exile. 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  197 

tian  origin,  together  with  the  Egyptian  phrase 
"  the  lip  of  the  river."  A  large  number  of 
other  words  found  in  the  papyri  and  on  the 
monuments  cling  to  the  book,  in  token  of  tlie 
recent  contact  of  its  author  with  Egypt. 

Again,  the  freshness  and  minuteness  and 
exactness  of  correspondence  between  this 
narrative  and  the  Egyptian  antiquities  of  the 
time,  is  incompatible  with  any  considerable 
interval  between  the  Exodus  and  the  compo- 
sition of  the  Egyptian  period  of  this  Hebrew 
history.  And  here  let  me  fall  back  on  so  great 
an  authority  as  that  of  R.  S.  Poole,  deliberately 
pronounced  within  three  years.  After  speak- 
ing of  the  "extraordinary  acuteness  and  skill" 
with  which  German  and  Dutch  critics  have  la- 
bored upon  the  ^Mosaic  documents  alone,  "and 
their  result "  "  to  reduce  the  date  of  the  docu- 
ments, except  a  few  fragments,  many  centu- 
ries," he  proceeds  to  say  that  "the  w^ork  has 
been  that  of  great  literary  critics,  not  archae- 
ologists. The  Egyptian  documents  emphati- 
cally call  for  a  reconsideration  of  the  whole 
question  of  the  date  of  the  Pentateuch.  It  is 
now  certain  that  the  narrative  of  the  history 
of  Joseph,  and  the  sojourn  and  exodus  of  the 
Israelites,  that  is  to  say,  the  portion  from 
Genesis  xxxix.  to  Exodus  xv.,  so  far  as  it  re- 
lates to  Egypt,  is  substantially  not  much  later 


198       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

than  1300  b.  c.  [about  the  tiine  he  assigns  for 
the  Exodus],  in  other  words  was  written  while 
the  memory  of  the  events  was  fresh.  The  mi- 
nute accuracy  of  the  text  is  inconsistent  with 
any  later  date.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  shows 
knowledge  of  Egypt,  but  knowledge  of  Egypt 
under  the  Eamessides  and  yet  earlier.  The 
condition  of  the  country,  the  chief  cities  of  the 
frontier,  the  composition  of  the  army,  are  true 
of  the  age  of  the  Eamessides,  and  not  true  of 
the  Pharaohs  contemporary  with  Solomon  and 
his  successors."  And  after  a  long  list  of  such 
marked  and  striking  congruities,  Mr.  Poole 
proceeds,  "These  arguments  have  not  failed 
to  strike  foreign  Egyptologists  who  have  no 
theological  bias.  These  independent  schol- 
ars, without  actually  formulating  any  view  of 
the  date  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Pentateuch, 
appear  uniformly  to  treat  its  text  as  an  author- 
ity to  be  cited  side  by  side  with  Egyptian 
monuments.  So  Lepsius  in  his  researches  on 
the  date  of  the  Exodus,  and  Brugsch  in  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  route,  Chabas  in  his  paper  on 
Rameses  and  Pithom.  Of  course  it  would  be 
unfair  to  implicate  any  one  of  these  scholars 
in  the  inferences  expressed  above,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  is  impossible  that  they  can,  for  in- 
stance, hold  Kuenen's  theories  of  the  date  of 
the  Pentateuch,  so  far  as  the  part  relating  to 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  199 

Egypt  is  concerned.  They  have  taken  the  two 
sets  of  documents,  Hebrew  and  Egyptian,  side 
by  side,  and,  in  the  working  of  the  elaborate 
problems,  found  everything  consistent  with  ac- 
curacy on  both  sides;  and  of  course  accurac}^ 
would  not  be  maintained  in  a  tradition  handed 
down  through  several  centuries."  " 

"If,"  proceeds  the  same  writer,  "the  large 
portion  of  the  Pentateuch  relating  to  the  Egyp- 
tian period  of  Hebrew  history,  including  as  it 
does  Elohistic  as  well  as  Jehovistic  sections, 
is  of  the  remote  antiquity  here  claimed  for  it, 
no  one  can  doubt  that  the  first  four  books 
are  substantially  of  the  same  age." 

Ao-ain,  the  Pentateuch  from  the  time  of  the 
Exodus  contains  abundant  contemporaneous 
marks  of  the  long  wandering.  It  is  sprinkled 
with  arrangements  for  a  migratory  nation  on 
its  migrations.  How  prominent  the  legislation 
for  the  march  in  all  the  details  of  the  march, 
and  for  the  construction  and  transportation 
of  the  movable  tabernacle  and  for  sanitary 
matters  on  the  way !  The  minuteness  of  de- 
tails of  these  things,  and  of  the  census,  and 
the  princes'  offerings,  is  completely  in  keeping 
and  of  necessity  as  exact  directions  given  to 
be  exactly  executed  then  and  there,  precisely 
like  some  contract  with  all  the  specifications  to 
'•-'  "Contemporary  Review,"  March,  1879. 


200       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

build  a  house — or  as  facts  of  contemporaneous 
intei'est  oidy;  but,  except  as  given  for  direct  use 
and  contemporary  record,  so  intolerably  tedi- 
ous, that  as  a  matter  of  later  and  distant  his- 
tory it  is,  as  Delitzsch  truly  remarks,  "  incon- 
ceivable "  they  should  ever  have  been  preserved 
or  invented,  much  less  recorded  and  trans- 
mitted. The  wood  of  which  the  tabernacle  is  to 
be  made  is  the  shittim  wood,  the  one  prevalent 
tree  of  the  Sinaitic  Wadies,  and  the  only  solid 
tree  of  sufficient  size  to  furnish  the  planks  as 
prescribed.  The  cypress  of  Palestine  is  not 
there,  nor  the  cedar,  except  in  slight  quan- 
tities for  purification, — for  a  purpose  like  that 
for  which  it  was  used  in  Egypt.  The  game 
of  the  wilderness — like  the  chamois — is  in- 
cluded among  the  clean  animals  of  the  Law. 
Blunt  in  his  "  Undesigned  Coincidences"  has 
mentioned  several  minute  but  almost  con- 
cealed correspondences  in  regard  to  the  fall 
of  Korah's  company,  the  arrangement  of  the 
tribes  with  reference  to  the  tabernacle,  and 
the  like,  which  could  have  come  only  from  a 
participant  in  the  journey. 

Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith  does  indeed 
say  that  "  the  Pentateuch  displays  an  exact 
topographical  knowledge  of  Palestine,  but  by 
no  means  so  exact  a  knowledge  of  the  wilder- 
ness of  wandering Accordingly,  the 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  201 

patriarchal  sites  can  still  be  set  down  on  the 
map  with  definiteness,  hut  geographers  are 
still  unable  to  assign  with  certainty  the  site 
of  j\It.  Sinai,  because  the  narrative  has  none 
of  that  local  color  which  the  story  of  an  eye- 
witness is  sure  to  possess."  But  the  simple 
reason  for  the  difference — so  far  as  it  exists — 
is  that  fixed  landmarks,  circumstantial  differ- 
ences, and  permanent  populations  have  in  the 
one  case  furnished  means  of  identification,  in 
the  other  not.  The  threescore  and  ten  palm 
trees  and  twelve  wells  of  water  at  Elim  are 
local  coloring  enough.  Sinai,  we  mclintain, 
can  be  identified  by  the  features  indicated  in 
the  narrative,  probably  the  wilderness  of  Sin, 
and  the  place  of  crossing  the  Ked  Sea,  the  en- 
campment by  the  sea,  perhaps  Marah,  possibly 
the  region  of  the  quails.  But  as  a  general 
thing  there  exists,  whether  in  the  Sinaitic 
peninsula,  or  still  more  in  the  wilderness  of 
wandering,  no  local  coloriwj.  It  is  in  the  wil- 
derness— as  the  traveller  can  testify — a  mon- 
otonous waste,  with  no  discernible  landmarks 
by  which  to  describe,  and,  in  the  peninsula,  a 
maze  of  similar  wadies  running  among  rocks, 
hills  and  mountains.  There  is,  for  the  most 
part,  absolutely  nothing  by  which  specifically 
to  indicate  them,  except  in  the  order  and  time 
of  the  journey,  and  no  local  population  to  have 


202       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

handed  down  the  names  or  knowledge  of  them 
in  the  absence  of  specified  landmarks.  The 
objection  misconceiv' es  the  whole  aspect  of  the 
case. 

Again,  a  mark  of  the  time  of  the  composi- 
tion, or  the  time  of  Moses,  is  found  in  the  pro- 
gressive adaptive  legislation  incorporated  witli 
the  more  permanent  matters.  Thus  it  has  often 
been  point-- Ji  out  how,  as  emergencies  arose  on 
the  way,  the  earlier  laws  were  modified  to  meet 
the  emergency,  by  supplementary  legislation. 
Mr.  Stebbins  affirms  that  in  Deuteronomy  there 
are  as  many  as  sixty  such  amendments  or  mod- 
ifications of  the  laws  as  given  in  Exodus  and 
Numbers ;  besides  at  least  a  dozen  express  ref- 
erences to  the  previous  legislation  of  Moses. 
At  the  time  of  the  last  residence  at  Kadesh, 
just  before  the  final  departure  for  Canaan,  we 
have  some  express  regulations  with  reference 
to  their  entering  that  country  to  settle,  and  the 
new  circumstances  ensuing.  Still  other  regu- 
lations or  modifications  are  made  when  the 
Israelites  had  left  the  wilderness,  and  were 
encamped  by  the  Jordan.  All  bears  the  mark 
of  the  long  journey  and  the  shifting  exigen- 
cies. And,  as  has  been  well  said,  the  difference 
between  the  hopeful  strain  in  which  Moses  ad- 
dresses Israel  at  the  close  of  the  original  law- 
giving (Lev.  xxvi.)  and  the  sad,  solemn  and 


THE    EARLY   DOCUMENTS.  203 

monitory  tone  of  the  reminiscences  and  ex- 
hortations of  Deuteronomy,  is  precisely  that 
which  belonged  to  the  different  occasions  and 
the  man. 

Such,  briefly  indicated  in  merest  outline, 
are  some  of  the  constraining  reasons  why  we 
believe  with  the  ancient  Jewish  church,  ap- 
parently with  the  Saviour  and  the  apostles, 
and  the  whole  Christian  Churcli  till  the  pres- 
ent century,  that  Moses  was  the  responsible 
author  of  their  ancient  records.  The  reasons 
seem  to  us  massive  and  conclusive.  They 
settle  the  question  unless  there  are  insuper- 
able reasons  to  the  contrary.  But  we  cheer- 
fully listen  to  whatever  can  be  alleged  against 
this  mass  of  evidence.  It  is  precisely  the 
same  kind  of  evidence,  be  it  observed,  on 
which  rests  the  authorship,  not  of  one  or 
some,  but  all  the  writings  of  the  past,  just  as 
soon  as  the  author  and  his  contemporary  gen- 
eration have  passed  away,  with  this  mighty 
difference,  that  our  volume  is  incorporated,  as 
I  have  remarked,  with  the  history,  literature, 
institutions  and  traditions  of  a  great  continu- 
ous nation  from  the  very  beginning,  as  no 
other  authorship  ever  has  been  or  can  be. 
Be  it  remembered  that  the  denial  which — 
unless  for  the  most  imperative  necessity — re- 
jects the  accredited  authorship  of  the  Penta- 


204      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

tench,  in  the  same  denial  is  dislodging  the 
foundations  of  literary  history — and  is  a  pro- 
cess to  which  no  limits  can  be  set. 

And  here — in  the  objections  hitherto  urged 
— we  do  not  seem  to  find  anything  which  car- 
ries constraining  force.  We  admit  some  diffi- 
culties which  await  solution.  But  they  are 
no  more  than  are  reasonably  to  be  expected, 
if  so  many.  Some  of  the  objections  are  as- 
sertions that  cannot  be  maintained,  others  are 
inferences  that  do  not  bind. 

Indeed  so  rapid  has  been  the  succession  and 
to  some  degree  so  evanescent  the  force  of  the 
objections  raised  that  one  hardly  knows  what 
of  them  are  still  relied  upon,  so  do  the  fash- 
ions change. 

The  old  difficulties  raised  concerning  the 
art  of  writing,  and  from  the  alleged  mistakes 
of  narrative  concerning  Egyptian  customs  have 
long  been  buried  deep  out  of  sight. 

The  allegation  that  the  relation  of  a  miracle 
proves  the  narrative  to  be  a  late  tradition,  rests 
on  the  groundless  assumption  that  there  can 
be  no  miracle. 

The  difficulty  of  receiving  as  the  narrative 
of  a  participant  or  contemporary  the  account 
of  the  wandering,  because  of  the  impractica- 
bility of  providing  for  such  a  multitude,  would 
indeed  be  insuperable  but  for  the  very  circum- 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  205 

stances  stated  in  the  narrative, — including-  the 
miraculous  provision. 

The  objection  from  the  presence  of  alleged 
documents  in  the  narrative  long  managed  to 
hide,  under  a  vast  multitude  of  details  and  a 
cloud  of  mist,  the  very  simple  fact  that  the 
presence  of  such  documents  in  no  way  mili- 
tated against  the  final  Mosaic  authorship — 
unless  these  documents  contained  anachron- 
isms, clear  marks  of  later  date. 

The  attempt  to  find  such  anachronisms  has 
proved  so  feeble  as  to  be  fairly  pronounced  a 
failure.  We  have  but  to  concede  a  few,  a  very 
lew  instances  of  the  slightest  revision  or  of 
explanatory  glosses,  such  as  were  easily  and 
naturally  incorporated  with  the  text,  and  all 
is  clear.  Indeed  the  few  patches  of  this  kind 
betray  themselves  almost  at  once.  Of  plausi- 
ble anachronisms  the  list  is  of  the  scantiest. 
The  case  of  "Dan"  mentioned  in  Genesis  xiv. 
is  the  strongest,  but  is  easily  explained  in  sev- 
eral ways,  one  of  which  is  (with  Ewald)  that, 
in  keeping  with  the  other  explanatory  names, 
this  also  Avas  inserted  and  the  older  name  dis- 
placed. When  Prof  Robertson  Smith  still 
insists  on  the  case  of  "  westward  and  south- 
ward"— literally  sea- ward  and  negev-ward— 
as  expressions  for  this  purpose  that  could  only 
be  formed  in  Palestine,  his  application  of  the 


206       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

fact  is  a  non-sequitnr.  They  were  funned  in 
Palestine,  and  there  they  were  incorporated 
with  the  Hebrew  or  Palestinian  language  in 
which  x4braham  and  afterward  .Moses  found 
them  and  used  them.  A  few  statements,  sucli 
as  concerning  the  meekness  of  Moses,  the  eat- 
ing of  manna  till  they  came  to  the  borders  of 
Canaan,  and  the  size  of  an  omer,  and  other  sim 
ilar  parenthetical  remarks,  such  as  may  be  con- 
ceded to  be  by  a  later  hand,  and  of  course  the 
account  of  Moses'  death — just  as  the  date  of 
Bradford's  death  is  subjoined  to  his  own  man- 
uscript account  of  tlie  Plymouth  Pilgrims  and 
their  decease  one  after  auotiier — comprise  the 
main  body  of  these  difficulties.  The  allusion 
to  the  kings  reigning  in  Edom  before  any 
reigned  in  Israel,  some  two  similar  passages 
(Lev.  xviii.  28,  Deut.  ii.  12),  and  a  few  expres- 
sions in  Deuteronomy  may  perhaps  be  added. 
Now  making  the  rather  obvious  supposition 
of  a  few  such  easy  and  natural  revisions  and 
glosses,  and  what  weight  does  their  presence 
carry  to  detract  from  the  great  and  funda- 
mental aspects  of  the  authorship  ?  Of  the  nu- 
merical or  arithmetical  objections  so  carefully 
collected  and  so  confidently  paraded  some 
twenty  years  ago,  may  we  not  as  confidently 
say  that  they  were  overwhelmed  by  an  ava- 
lanche of  effectual  refutations,  proving  in  de- 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  207 

tail  an  unwarrantable  treatment  of"  the  nar- 
rative by  arbitrary  and  often  clearly  false 
limitations  or  expansions,  and  in  case  of  real 
difficulties  by  the  equally  arbitrary  exclusion 
of  explanations  perfectly  fair  and  feasible? 
Thus  much  in  brief  for  the  case  as  it  has  ex- 
isted until  the  most  recent  times. 

But  what  shall  be  said  of  the  latest  form  of 
objection  which  has  arisen  after  some  nineteen 
years  or  so — like  another  lunar  cycle  ?  I  mean 
the  theory  of  Kuenen  as  in  part  interpreted 
by  Prof  Smith.  For  a  general  refutation  of 
that  theory  as  advanced  by  this  bright  Scotch 
Professor,  in  his  main  position  that  the  dis- 
tinctive Priesthood  of  Aai'on's  sons  and  the  rit- 
ual establishment  of  Levitical  law  did  not  exist 
before  the  time  of  Ezra — I  refer  you  to  a  discus- 
sion in  the  January  number  of  the  "  Presbyte- 
rian Review"  and  elsewhere  by  an  honored  pro- 
fessor of  this  Theological  Seminary,  Dr.  Green. 
And  in  the  demolition  of  that  main  position 
of  Robertson  Smith,  the  theory  of  the  master 
Kuenen  is  also  demolished.  And  how  pre- 
tentious is  the  airy  structure  in  its  large  prep- 
arations and  in  the  perverse  ingenuity  of  its 
details.  It  was  a  bold  man  who  as  a  prelim- 
inary breaking  of  the  ground,  undertook  to 
reverse  the  decision  of  the  great  host  of  his 
critical  predecessors  and  place  the  so-called 


208       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

Jehovist  earlier  in  time  than  the  Elohist;  \vho 
ventured  openly  to  set  up  his  "supposition 
with  respect  to  the  Mosaic  period "  and  his 
"conception  of  historical  development,"  as  a 
test,  and  on  the  strength  of  that  supposition 
remanded  the  Pentateuch  to  a  later  age;  who 
dares  to  assert  that  the  writers  of  the  books 
"fearlessly  allowed  themselves  to  be  guided 
in  their  statements  b}^  the  wants  of  the  pres- 
ent and  the  reqviireraents  of  the  future,"  "and 
considered  themselves  exempt  from  all  respon- 
sibility;" who  after  ruling  out  the  historical 
books  as  unhistorical  and  as  only  expressing 
"^/ic  idea  which  was  entertained  of  that  his- 
tory in  the  eighth  century,"  yet  proceeds  to 
build  up  half  a  volume  of  Israel's  history  out 
of  these  very  repudiated  sources;  who,  to  rid 
himself  of  the  troublesome  witness  of  Chron- 
icles, could  summarily  dismiss  the  Chronicler 
as  one  who  with  all  the  traditional  facts  clearly 
before  him  yet  gave  an  entirely  different  ver- 
sion for  his  priestly  ends;  who  can  rest  the 
main  weight  of  his  central  position  on  the 
implied  assumption  that  the  violation  of  a 
law,  even  the  failure  to  mention  a  custom, 
is  evidence  that  no  such  law  or  custom  ex- 
isted; and  who  can  deliberately  face  all  the 
seeming  impossibilities  of  the  allegation  that 
priestly  ordinances   were   made    known    and 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  209 

imposed  upon  the  Jewish  nation  now  for  tlie 
first  time  by  Ezra,  and  when  modified  by  Nehe- 
miah  or  perhaps  others,  the  fraud  was  quietly 
palmed  off  upon  the  returned  exiles  as  "the 
laws  of  God  by  the  hand  of  Moses" — and  so 
received  without  a  remonstrance  or  a  suspicion. 
And  when  reinforced  by  all  the  labor  and 
ingenuity  of  Wellhausen  the  main  features 
of  the  case  remain  unchanged.  iVnd,  as  I  be- 
lieve, it  is  only  a  question  of  a  little  time  for 
rallying  to  the  defence,  and  we  shall  see  this 
airy  fabric  like  its  predecessors  vanish  into 
thin  air  again.  Already  it  is  clearly  shown 
not  only  that  even  on  Wellhausen's  own 
ground  of  natural  development,  a  defined 
priestly  service  in  connection  with  the  Priest- 
hood would  have  been  at  the  Exodus  prompted 
by  the  singular  completeness  of  the  then  exist- 
ing priestly  functions  and  religious  ceremonies 
of  Egypt  itself,'''  but  there  are  historic  indica- 
tions, inseparable  from  the  records  of  the  region, 
that  a  ritual  was  established  by  Moses  on  the 
march  and  that  it  certainly  existed  prior  to 
thetimeof  theexile.'^    Furthermore  the  dictum 

'3  Wilkinsou's  "Ancient  Egyptians,"  i.  259,  seq.,  311, 
.seq. 

'■I  See  Exodus  xxiv.  6;  Deut.  xxiii.  10;  Ps.  xcix;  See  also 
Dent,  xviii.  1,  2,  in  connection  with  Numbers  xviii.  20,  23; 
Deuteronomy  being,  by  decision  of  this  school  of  critics, 
not  later  than  Josiah's  time. 


210      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

that  remonstrances  for  the  non-observance  of 
a  law  or  code  prove  its  non-existence,  breaks 
down  wherever  it  is  appHed,  whether  to  the 
morals  of  Israel  in  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel's  time, 
where  it  would  show  that  the  nation  had  no 
knowledge  even  of  such  fundamental  laws  as 
against  murder,  promiscuous  adultery,  rob- 
bery, fraud,  and  sin  of  everj^  kind;"  and  also 
through  most  of  the  history  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament church  when  it  would  show  that  there 
was  no  knowledge  of  law  or  gospel  even  on 
the  part  of  the  Roman  priesthood.  Agani, 
this  theory,  comprising  the  position  that  Moses 
framed  no  priestly  ordinances  and  also  that 
David  and  Solomon  composed  no  psalms  nor 
proverbs,  involves  the  singular  improbability 
that  what  it  terms  "the  Creative  period" 
(Moses'  time)  created  nothing  and  that  the 
most  active  and  fruitful  periods  produced 
nothing,  but  that  the  time  of  abject  depres- 
sion, general  decadence  and  secondary  ability 
is  the  grat  source  of  the  magnificent  Hebrew 
literature.^^     The   theory   would   still   further 

16  Ezekiel  xxii.  6-12;  xxxiii.  26;  Isaiah  i.  10,  15,  21, 
23,  etc. 

16  For  this  and  other  important  suggestions  in  this  para- 
graph I  am  indebted  to  the  elaborate  though  condensed 
article  of  Professor  Hermann  J.  Strack  on  "The  Penta- 
teuch," in  thelast  edition  of  Herzog's  "Eeal-Encyklopiidie." 
I  have  thought  his  article  valuable  enough  to  be  added 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  211 

stultify  many  of  the  provisions  contained  in 
this  "priest  code,"  by  making  them  to  originate 
at  a  time  when  the  occasion  for  them  had 
passed  centuries  before.  This  would  apply  not 
alone  to  the  legislation  for  the  march  in  gen- 
eral, but  to  such  specific  directions  as  those 
concerning  the  Urim  and  Thummim  which 
Aaron  was  to  bear  (Ex.  xxviii.  29,  30),  and 
which  usage  was  previously  extant  in  the  time 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  (Neh.  vii.  65 ;  Ezra  ii. 
63);  to  the  right  of  booty  (Num.  xxxi.  21-24); 
to  the  original  assignment  of  cities  to  the 
Levites  (Num.  xxxv.);  and  to  the  ancient 
ordinance  of  the  jubilee  year.  Lev.  xxv.,  in- 
volving the  relations  of  these  Levites  (vs.  32, 
33).  Indeed  the  existence  of  the  ritual  code 
not  only  appears  from  Deuteronomy  (conceded 
to  be  older  than  the  exile)  with  its  distinction 
of  clean  and  unclean  (Deut.  xii.  15),  but  some 
of  the  permitted  food  of  that  code  were  char- 
acteristic animals  of  the  wilderness  (xiv.  5). 
Further  yet,  the  effort  to  trace  the  language 
of  the  Pentateuchal  priestly  code  to  the  time 
of  Ezekiel  or  later,  has  been  vigorously  retorted 
by  showing,  as  in  the  names  of  the  four  chief 

(a  part  of  it)  as  an  Appeudix  to  these  Lectures.  His  argii- 
ineut  is  the  more  noteworthy  because  he  accepts  the  now 
prevalent  German  theory  of  four  principal  documents  and 
one  or  more  redactors. 


212       HISTORY  IM   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

colors  of  the  priest  code,  that  the  language 
of  the  former  is  plainly  original  and  ancient, 
in  contrast  to  the  Aramean  and  Arian  forms 
of  the  time  of  the  Chronicles.^'  And  to  crown 
all  the  other  inconsistencies  of  the  theory  comes 
the  pervasive  moral  monstrosity  of  a  scheme 
which  would  assign  to  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
a  concerted"  and  successful  plan  to  palm  oft' 
upon  Israel  a  complexus  of  impostures  ex- 
tending from  Exodus  to  Kings  and  Chronicles; 
— the  story  of  Moses'  birth  being  but  a  myth,'* 
the  story  of  the  Law-giving  at  Sinai,  "  the 
product  of  a  poetic  necessity,"  that  mountain 
being  but  the  Olympus  of  the  Hebrews,  and 
the  process  of  centuries  "being  condensed 
into  a  single  thrilling  moment  for  the  sake 
of  a  vivid  impression,"-"  the  Decalogue  be- 
longing perhaps  to  the  time  of  ]\Ianasseh, 
Deuteronomy  a  fabrication  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, all  the  historic  setting  of  the  Mosaic  leg- 
islation a  series  of  supplementary,  carefully 
adjusted  traditions  made  by  the  scribes  so  as 
to  advance  "  with  all  the  progressive  require- 
ments of  life";  Judges  a  "systematic  general- 
ization, contradicted  by  facts  which  we  other- 
wise know"-';  Chronicles  written  to  sustain 

'''  See  this  argument  in  Delitzsch's  Preface   to   "The 
Levitical  Priests,"  p.  11,  seq. 

18  Wellhaiisen,  "Encyc.  Brit."  xiii.  418. 

19  Ih.  p.  399.  20  /6.  p.  400.  -''  Ih.  p.  400. 


THE    EARLY   DOCUMENTS.  213 

the  imposition,  and  Kings  skilfully  interpreted 
and  modified  by  these  same  ingenious  and  un- 
scrupulous men  for  the  same  purpose. 

Add  to  all  this  that  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
themselves,  who  are  put  forward  as  the  chief 
fabricators  of  this  alleged  new  Levitical  code, 
present  themselves  in  no  such  attitude,  but 
as  restorers  of  the  ancient  service.  Ezra 
comes  forward  simply  as  "a  ready  scribe  in 
///e  law  of  3Ioses  which  the  Lord  God  of  Israel 
had  given"'  (Ez.  vii.  6,  11)  who  "had  pre- 
pared his  heart  to  seek  the  law  of  the  Lord 
and  do  it."  And  when  he  read  the  law  pub- 
licly to  the  people,  it  was  "  the  book  of  the 
law  of  Moses,  which  the  Lord  had  commanded 
Israel"  (Neh.  viii.  1),  "The  law  which  the 
Lord  had  commanded  Moses "  (verse  14) 
Avith  specific  references  to  the  priest  code 
of  Leviticus  (viii.  9,  comp.  Lev.  xxiii.  24; 
aJso  Neh.  viii.  14,  15,  18,  comp.  Lev.  xxiii. 
40,  42,  36).  And  both  Ezra  and  Nehe- 
miah make  it  the  burden  of  their  confes- 
sions that  "  from  the  days  of  their  fathers 
the  people  had  been  in  a  great  trespass  and 
cast  God's  law  behind  their  backs"  (Ez.  ix. 
6,  7,  10,  Neh.  ix.  26,  28,  29,  30,  34).  Yet  these 
are  the  men  who  are  declared  to  be  the  origi- 
nators of  the  Levitical  code,  and  this  is  the 
mountainous  series  of  elaborate  and  system- 


214       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

atic  and  monstrous  impostures  that  we  are 
expected  to  receive  on  such  shallow  and  self- 
conflicting  arguments  as  have  been  indicated. 
Surely  when  such  a  structure  as  this  goes 
down,  we  can  hardly  say  "  great  was  the  fall 
of  it " ;  for  however  ingenious,  not  great  was 
the  structure. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  I  have  completed  the 
pleasant  task  I  have  undertaken, — to  set  be- 
fore you  in  some  degree  the  five  books  of 
Moses  as  containing  the  sources  of  history. 
It  has  been  with  me  a  labor  of  interest  and 
love  to  which  I  would  have  been  glad  to 
devote  more  time  and  labor  were  it  consistent 
with  other  engagements.  I  have  wished  in 
these  days  of  cavil  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
not  only  is  our  ancient  Pentateuch  not  a  book 
to  be  ashamed  of,  but  it  is  a  book  to  glory  in, 
— with  its  wonderful  elucidations  of  the  whoLg 
early  condition  of  our  globe  and  of  our  race, 
with  its  own  announcement  of  the  most  mo- 
mentous events  and  the  most  vital  institu- 
tions, its  clear  unfolding  of  the  germs  of  all 
subsequent  life,  and  its  graphic  delineations 
of  scenes  and  persons  otherwise  shrouded  in 
mist  or  hidden  behind  an  impenetrable  veil. 
It  is  the  grandest  of  histories,  the  noblest 
series  of  biographies,  the  divine  germ  of  all 


THE    EARLY  DOCUMENTS.  215 

human  institutions,  the  substructure  of  all  re- 
ligious hopes,  and  the  primal  clue  to  all  the 
past  and  the  future  of  our  race.  My  discus- 
sion has,  from  its  limits,  necessarily  been 
suggestive,  rather  than  exhaustive.  But 
should  I  have  made  any  suggestion  fruitful 
of  better  results  in  any  of  your  minds,  if  I 
have  even  prompted  you  to  some  fresh  inqui- 
ries along  any  portion  of  this  broad  and  fruit- 
ful field,  or  stimulated  any  of  you  to  broader 
investigations  or  a  profounder  sacred  scholar- 
ship, my  best  wishes  will  have  been  accom- 
plished. And  though  my  discussion  has  dealt 
largely  with  the  secondary  aspect  of  the  vol- 
mne,  it  has  not  been  in  disparagement,  but 
in  support,  of  its  primary  ends.  And  I  cannot 
in  closing  better  express  my  views  on  this  point 
than  in  the  words  of  a  brilliant  expositor: 

"The  Torah  is  the  basis  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  the  Old  Testament  the  preparation 
for  the  religion  of  Redemption.  What  the 
four  gospels  are  to  the  New  Testament,  that 
are  the  five  books  of  the  law  to  the  Old 
Testament.  But  not  merely  do  beginning 
and  beginning,  but  beginning  and  end  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  canon,  Genesis  and 
Apocalypse,  run  together  like  the  ends  of  a 
circle.  The  creation  of  the  heavens  and  earth 
on  the  first  pages  of  Genesis  corresponds  to 


216      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

the  creation  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earth  on  the  last  page  of  Revelation.  To  the 
first  creation  which  had  Adam  for  its  end, 
corresponds  the  new  creation  which  takes  the 
second  Adam  for  its  beginning.  Thus  does 
the  Holy  Scripture  form  a  unity  compacted 
into  itself,  to  show  that  not  alone  this  or  that 
book,  but  the  whole  is  a  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  Torah,  with  its  shadow  of  good 
things  to  come,  is  the  root,  the  Apocalypse, 
penetrating  into  the  '  world  to  come,'  is  the 
top.  Take  away  the  three  first  chapters  of 
Genesis  from  the  Bible,  and  you  take  away 
tlie  terminus  a  quo;  take  away  the  last  three 
chapters  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  you  take 
away  the  terminus  ad  quern."  And  now,  with 
many  thanks  for  your  kind  attention,  I  take 
my  leave. 


APPENDIX. 


STRACK    ON    THE    PENTATEUCH. 

The  following  extract  contains  the  more  im- 
portant i:)art  of  Prof.  Hermann  L.  Strack's  ar- 
ticle on  the  Pentateuch,  in  the  last  edition  of 
Herzog's  "Real-Encyklop'adie,"  Leipzig,  1882. 
His  criticisms  on  the  theory  of  Wellhausen, 
which  close  the  extract,  would  not  be  suffi- 
ciently intelligible  without  his  account  of  the 
recent  theories,  which  precedes  it.  We  omit 
his  summary  of  the  contents  of  the  Pentateuch, 
his  "justification  of  the  Criticism,"  and  his  brief 
narrative  of  its  history  from  the  time  of  Astruc 
till  recent  times — the  latter  topic  being  by  this 
time  somewhat  familiar.  Strack's  criticisms  are 
the  more  significant,  because  of  his  complete 
sympathy  with  the  "  Higher  Criticism."  He 
would  find  the  unity  of  compilation  rather  in 
the  Hexateuch  (including  Joshua)  than  the  Pen- 
tateuch. He  classifies  the  principal  theories  as 
three:  the  Fragment,  Supplement,  and  Docu- 
ment theories.  He  expresses  his  sympathy  with 
the  third,  within  the  range  of  which,  he  says, 
"  there  exist  considerable  differences  of  opinion. 


218       HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

relating  less  to  the  analysis  than  to  the  order 
and  age  of  the  sources."  ' 

He  recounts  the  several  names  that  have  been 
given  to  these  documents  thus:  a.  The  first  Elo- 
hist,  the  Ground-writing,  Book  of  Origins,  Ana- 
lytic Narrator,  A.,  and  (by  Wellhausen)  P.  C. 
(and  2).  h.  The  second  Elohist,  the  younger 
Elohist,  the  third  Narrator,  the  Theocratic  Nar- 
rator, B.  or  North-Israelitish  Narrator,  C,  and 
(Wellhausen)  E.  c.  The  Jehovist,  Supplementer, 
Fourth  Narrator,  Prophetic  Narrator,  C,  and 
(Wellhausen)  J.     d.  Deuteronomist,  D. 

Strack  prefers  Wellhausen's  designation  as 
least  objectionable,  using,  however,  P.  instead  of 
P.  C.  (priest  code)  and  E.^  instead  of  E.     His 

•  He  affirms  (as  against  Keil)  that  "Critics  of  all  tenden- 
cies (Delitzsch,  Wellhausen,  etc.)  are  agreed  upon  the 
neces-sity  of  a  separation  of  the  fundamental  documents, 
and,  secondly,  that  in  the  analysis  of  very  many  sections 
unanimity  has  been  gained,  either  complete  or  in  the 
main.  Thus  in  the  first  nine  chapters  of  Genesis,  Noldeke, 
Dillmann  and  Wellhausen  unanimously  refer  to  the  so- 
called  Elohist,  i.-ii.  3a;  v.  (except  ver.  29);  vi.  9-22;  vii.  11, 
13-16a,  18-21,  24;  viii.  1,  2a;  3b-5,  13a,  14-19;  ix.  1-17. 
Differences  exist  in  reference  to  five  verses  or  parts  of 
verses.  Noldeke  and  Dillmann  add  vii.  6;  Noldeke  adds 
vii.  22,  where  Dillmann  assumes  an  interference  by  the 
compiler  (redactor),  and  Wellhausen  is  for  rejection;  vii.  23 
is  rejected  by  Noldeke  and  Wellhausen,  while  Dillmann 
refers  the  second  half-verse,  but  not  with  full  confidence, 
to  the  same  document;  of  the  first  of  the  two  half-verses, 
viii.  3a,  13b,  which  Wellhausen  adds,  Dillmann  only  says 
it  is  'probably'  by  the  Jehovist."  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  claim  is  cautious — for  "  very  many  sections,"  and 
that  the  specification  made  is  carefully  chosen. 


APPENDIX.  219 

subsequent  statements,  wliicli  we  give,  will  show 
the  latest  phases  of  the  discussion,  the  fluctua- 
tions and  caprices  of  the  theories,  and  the  insur- 
mountable objections  to  the  latest,  most  elabor- 
ate, and  most  ingenious  of  them.  His  blows 
are  the  more  telling  because  of  his  sympathy 
with  the  "critical"  process.  He  proceeds  as 
follows: 

THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  OPINIONS  AT  PRESENT  ADVOCATED. 

a.  Eb.  Schrader,  in  the  eighth  edition  of  De 
Wette's  "Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament" 
(Berlin,  1869),  declares  for  a  union  of  the  Docu- 
ment and  Supplement  theories;  holding  that  P., 
recognizable  until  the  end  of  the  book  of  Joshua, 
wrote  in  the  beginning  of  David's  reign,  was 
most  certainly  a  priest,  probably  a  Judean;  that 
E.^  traceable  to  I  Kings  ix.  28,  probably  a  North- 
Israelite,  wrote  soon  after  the  separation  of  the 
kingdoms,  between  975  and  950;  that  probably 
both  made  use  of  written  matei'ials;  that  J.,  also 
belonging  to  the  northern  kingdom,  between 
825  and  800,  combined  in  a  free  way  the  works 
of  P.  and  E.2  into  a  harmonious  whole,  making 
many  additions,  partly  from  other  written  rec- 
ords (e.  g.,  Ex.  xxi.-xxiii.),  partly  from  oral  tra- 
ditions. The  groundwork  of  Deuteronomy  (iv. 
44  to  chap  xxviii.)  was  composed  not  long  before 
the  eighteenth  year  of  Josiah  by  some  one  inti- 
mately related  to  Jeremiah,  an  inspired  man, 
who,  after  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of 
Judah,  inserted  his  work   into  P.,  E.2,  J.     The 


220       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

separation  of  the  Thora,  i.  e.,  of  the  Pentateuch 
in  its  present  form,  from  the  subsequent  history, 
did  not  take  place  before  the  end  of  the  Baby- 
lonian captivity.  It  was  publicl}'  sanctioned  at 
the  time  of  Ezra.  Schrader  even  now  holds  fast 
to  his  theory. 

b.  Th.  Noldeke,  in  his  investigations  upon  the 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  proposed  the  fol- 
lowing view:  P.,  E.2,  J.  spring  from  the  tenth 
century,  or  before  the  ninth.  E.^  is  extant  only 
in  J.'s  recasting.  P.  may  not  be  the  oldest 
writing,  but  cannot  be  much  younger  than  the 
two  others.  The  author  of  the  joart  D.,  written 
shortly  before  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  wrought 
his  work  into  the  previously  complete  Haxateuch, 
perhaps  also  separated  the  book  of  Joshua.  From 
information  given  me  on  the  20th  of  May,  1882, 
in  regard  to  Noldeke's  present  position  on  the 
Pentateuch  criticism,  I  infer  the  following:  Nol- 
deke has  given  up  his  attempt  at  identifying 
the  editor  (redactor)  with  the  writer  of  Deuter- 
onomy. He  declares  it  impossible  to  separate 
critically  the  mass  of  the  Pentateuch  which  re- 
mains after  P.  and  D.  are  withdrawn  from  it. 
He  cannot  accede  to  the  opinion  of  Graf  and 
Wellhausen.  In  the  law  literature  no  rectilinear 
development  can  be  recognized.  He  adheres  to 
the  dependence  of  Ezekiel  upon  P.  The  writer 
of  Deuteronomy  must  at  all  events  have  had  be- 
fore him  a  law  literature  written  in  essentially 
the  same  style  and  often  in  the  same  phraseology 
as  that  of  the  priest  code. 


APPENDIX.  221 

c.  Aug.  Dillmann  wiE  express  his  opinion  con- 
secutively at  the  end  of  his  revision  of  Knobel's 
"  Commentary  on  the  Hexateuch."  From  his 
present  utterances  we  may  infer  the  following: 
Whether  P.  or  E.^  may  claim  priority  of  date  is 
a  question.  E.^  belonging  to  the  bloom  of  the 
prophetic  life  in  the  central  tribes,  is  certainly 
older  than  J.,  whose  writing  rests  upon  that  of 
E.'-'  throughout,  and  is  much  more  nearly  related 
to  D.  in  time  and  spirit,  the  latter  having  been 
composed  shortly  before  Josiah's  reform.  P., 
E.'-,  and  J.  were  wrought  together  by  one  edi- 
tor (before  or  after  D.?).  The  narrative  of  Ne- 
hemiah,  viii.-x.,  has  reference  to  the  whole  Pen- 
tateuch.— For  traces  of  post-exile  revision  and 
editing,  see  "  Comm.  on  Ex.  and  Lev.,"  pp.  viii., 
356  ff.,  620. — P.,  E.^  and  J.  have  very  ancient 
sources,  especially  the  legal  contents;  e.  g.,  E. 
has  received  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  Ex.  xx., 
xxii.  to  xxiii.  19;  P.  and  J.,  in  Lev.  v.  1-6,  21,  26 
(compare  vi.,  vii.  17-26),  make  use  of  an  older  co- 
dex ("Law  of  Sinai "). 

d.  1.  Franz  Delitzsch  wrote  as  late  as  1872, 
(Com.  on  Gen.),  "The  book  of  Deuteronomy 
shows  itself  Mosaic,  and  must  in  the  main  be 
recognized  as  Mosaic;"  and  "A  man  like  Eleazar 
the  priest  wrote  the  great  work  beginning  with 
xnn  n''L"X"in  into  which  he  ^ui  the  covenant.  A 
second,  like  Joshua,  who  is  a  prophet  and  spoke 
like  a  prophet  or  one  of  those  D"":)??  upon  whom 
the  spirit  of  Moses  rested,  found  himself  empow- 
ered to  complete  this  work,  and  he  embodied 


222       HISTORY  IN    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

with  it  the  entire  Deuteronomy,  by  which  he  had 
formed  himself.  Thus  originated  the  Thora,  not 
without  the  use  of  other  written  documents  by 
both  narrators."  Since  1876  DeHtzsch,  at  first  es- 
pecially influenced  by  Aug.  Kayser,  has  modified 
his  views  considerably,  and  in  such  a  manner 
that  he  has  approached  Graf  and  his  disciples  as 
to  the  succession  and  analysis  of  the  original 
writings;  but  has  quite  differently  determined  the 
time  of  their  production,  and  has  earnestly  de- 
clared himseK  against  the  conclusions  which  that 
school  draws  in  regard  to  the  history,  especiall}'^ 
the  rehgious  history  of  Israel,  as  the  result  of 
their  critical  investigations.  Concerning  E.2,  I 
find  in  Delitzsch's  writings  only  the  following  ex- 
pression (Pent. -Grit.  Stud.,  1880,  P.  338,  f.)— "  It  is 
probable  that  the  book  of  the  covenant,  the  laws 
of  the  two  tables  and  various  narrations,  belong- 
ing to  the  so-called  second  Elohist,  were  ah-eady 
interwoven  with  the  Jehovistic  work  when  Deut- 
eronomj"-  originated  and  became  attached  to  it." 
Next  in  order  Delitzsch  places  J.  D  is  ranked 
after  Solomon,  but  before  Isaiah.  Next  is  the 
law  of  sanctification,  i.  e.,  especially  the  code  con- 
tained in  Lev.  xvii.-xxvi.  Then  comes  P.,  the 
youngest  figure  in  the  Legislation  that  refers 
back  to  Moses,  written  before  the  exile,  and  be 
fore  Ezekiel.  Delitzsch  cites  by  way  of  comparison 
the  many  records  previous  to  the  Canonical  Gos- 
pels, and  adds  that  "  he  is  now  firmly  convinced 
that  the  process  of  origin  and  growth  by  which 
the  Thora  attained  its  final  form,  extends  down  to 


APPENDIX.  223 

the  post-exilic  epoch,  and  perhaps  had  not  been 
perfected  at  the  time  when  the  Samaritan  Penta- 
teuch and  the  Greek  translation  came  into  ex- 
istence. So  much  the  more  firmly  do  we  take 
our  stand  upon  the  Mosaic  origin  and  revealed 
character  of  its  (the  Thora's)  basis." 

e.  J.  Wellhausen's  views:  Even  the  Decalogue 
is  not  Mosaic.  The  covenant  book,  Ex.  xx.  22  to 
ch.  xxiii.  19,  is  "  given  to  a  people  stationary  and 
perfectly  accustomed  to  an  agricultural  life." 
J.  belongs  "  to  the  golden  period  of  Hebrew  lit- 
erature, the  time  of  the  kings  and  prophets,  pre- 
ceding the  destruction  of  both  Israelitish  king- 
doms by  the  Assyrians."  "It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  after  the  blessing  of  Balaam,  J.  suddenly 
breaks  off.  Only  in  Num.  xxv.  1-5  and  Deut. 
xxxiv.  one  might  be  inclined  to  find  some  trace 
of  this  noble  historic  work,  e.  g.,  xxxiv,  7b."  E.'' 
shows  us  a  more  progressive  and  fundamental 
religiousness,  and  treats  also  of  the  subjugation 
of  Canaan.  "  Both  sources  have  perhaps  under- 
gone several  enlarged  editions  and  are  combined 
not  as  J.'  and  E.'^  but  as  J.^  and  E.^  "  D.  com- 
posed shortly  before  the  eighteenth  j-ear  of 
Josiah  and  at  that  time  containing  only  chapters 
xii.-xxvi.,  underwent,  "  not  before  the  exile,"  two 
enlarged  editions  independent  of  one  another. 
The  union  of  the  two  editions  and  the  insertion  of 
the  work  thus  composed  into  J.  E.^  took  place 
perhaps  in  immediate  connection  with  the  work  on 
Deuteronomj^  by  which  J.  and  E.-  were  blended 
into  J.  E.^    Lev.  xvii.-xxvi.,  is  a  collection  of  laws 


224      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

which  originated  in  the  exile,  between  Ezekiel 
and  the  priest  code,  but  nearer  Ezekiel,  al- 
though not  composed  by  him.  It  was  embodied 
into  P.  in  a  suitable  form.  The  part  of  the  Hex- 
ateuch  remaining  after  the  separation  of  J.  E.2 
and  D.  is  later  than  the  exile,  "  does  not  bear  the 
character  of  strict  unity,"  but  is  "  a  conglomerate, 
as  it  were,  of  the  work  of  an  entire  school." 
Around  a  fundamental  germ,  Q.,  which  was  re- 
markable for  its  historic  system,  there  have  sprung 
up  (irrespective  of  earlier  additions)  "  a  number 
of  secondary  and  tertiary  growths  which  in  form 
do  not  belong  to  it,  but  in  material  are  perfectly 
homogeneous;  so  that  the  whole  maybe  I'egarded, 
not  as  a  literary,  but  as  an  historic  unity."  The 
legislation  of  the  middle  books  (Ex.  xxv.-xxxi., 
xxxv.-xl..  Lev.,  Num.  i.-x.,  xv.-xix.,  xxv.-xxxvi., 
with  insignificant  exceptions) ;  standing  in  closest 
relations  with  Q.  in  language  and  contents,  as  well 
as  by  direct  references,  is  designated  as  a  priest- 
code.  As  originally  belonging  to  Q.  are  proven 
only:  Ex.  xxv.-xxix..  Lev.  ix.,  x.  1-5,  12-15; 
ch.  xvi.  Num.  i.  1-16.  i.  48  to  ch.  iii.,  ix.  15  to  ch. 
X.  28;  chs.  xvi.  partly,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xxv.,  6-19;  xxvi. 
xxvii.,  xxxii.,  partly,  xxxiii.  50  to  ch.  xxxvi.  This 
legislative  and  historical  work,  already  inserted 
into  J.  E.^  D.,  was  published  and  introduced  by 
Ezra  in  the  year  444;  "  for  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  law  of  Ezra  was  the  entire  Pentateuch." 

/.  K.  H.  Graf,  although  he  died  July  16,  1869, 
must  be  mentioned  here  on  account  of  the  great 
influence  which  his  main  theory  has  exerted  and 


APPENDIX.  225 

still  exerts.  He  declared  on  the  basis  of  liis  in- 
vestigations into  the  history  of  the  cultus,  that 
the  central  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch  bore  the 
most  unmistakable  traces  of  a  composition  after 
the  exile.  The  objections  of  Noldeke  and  Eiehm 
convinced  Graf  that  the  fundamental  writing 
(Grundschrift)  could  not  be  divided  in  such  a 
manner.  The  result  was,  not  that  he  withdrew 
his  assertion,  but  in  a  brief  essay  composed  shortly 
before  his  death,  he  declared  that  the  whole  so- 
called  fundamental  writing  was  the  product  of  an 
age  after  the  exile;  that  J.  was  composed  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighth  century,  or  about  the  time 
of  Ahaz;  D.  shortly  before  the  eighteenth  year  of 
Josiah;  the  Deuteronomist  (Inserter  of  D.),  in  the 
first  half  of  the  exile;  P.,  after  the  exile,  intro- 
duced by  Ezra;  insertion  in  J.  D.  soon  after 
Ezra. 

g.  Ed.  Reuss  says:  "The  Decalogue  is  perhaps 
the  very  oldest  piece  of  the  written  legislation,  but 
is  not  Mosaic."  The  covenant  book  belongs  pre- 
sumably to  the  time  of  Jehoshaphat  (See  2  Chron. 
xvii.  7) ;  the  so-called  second  decalogue,  Ex.  xxxiv. 
11  jff.  is  very  near  it  in  time;  J.,  the  book  of  sacred 
liistory,  embracing  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises 
by  the  possession  of  the  promised  land,  composed 
by  an  Israelite  of  the  ten  tribes  in  the  second  half 
of  the  ninth  century,  before  the  destruction  of  the 
Ephraimite  kingdom,  has  at  a  later  period  been 
so  wrought  together  with  the  perhaps  older  E.'- 
that  a  "separation  is  almost  impossible."  In  the 
eighteenth  year  of  Josiah  was  brought  to  light 


226      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

D.  "an  alleged  discovery  of  the  priests."  It  had 
been  written  immediately  before  this,  with  the 
purpose  of  prescribing  and  establishing  as  state 
law,  "the  fundamental  principles  of  the  theo- 
cratic constitution."  It  consisted  of  Deuteronomy 
v.-xxvi.,  xxvui.  Between  the  first  captivity  and 
the  destruction  of  the  state,  D.  was  joined  to  J. 
E.^  but  not  by  the  writer  of  D.  The  section  Lev. 
xvii.-xxvi.  is  not  preserved  in  its  ancient  form,  but 
is  interwoven  with  newer  parts.  The  fundamen- 
tal part  is  younger  than  D.,  -wTitten  after  the  time 
of  Ezekiel  but  before  that  of  Ezra.  The  work 
promulgated  by  Ezra  in  the  year  444  was  not 
the  entire  Pentateuch,  and  was  not  brought  fin- 
ished from  Babylon  by  Ezra,  but  was  written  be- 
tween 458  and  444.  The  historic  frame-work  of 
this  composition,  "a  bare  fiction"  ....  "dreams 
of  an  impoverished  race,"  was  written  by  one 
hand;  the  principal  contents,  however,  are  "a 
collection  of  laws  from  different  soui-ces."  In  the 
time  between  Nehemiah  and  Alexander,  the  code 
of  Ezra,  a  number  of  special  laws,  and  J.  E.'^  D. 
were  joined  to  form  one  whole,  with  little  skill 
and  less  historic  sense,  inasmuch  as  the  principle 
was  followed  that  nothing  essential  which  was 
then  in  existence  should  be  lost.  "  The  prophets 
are  to  be  recognized  as  older  than  the  law  and^ 
the  psalms  as  younger  than  both." 

A  discussion  of  all  the  preceding  characteristic 
views  is  of  course  impossible  in  this  place.  We 
will  give  here,  at  first,  a  few  general  remarks; 


APPENDIX.  227 

then,  a  condensed  discussion  upon  the  methods 
of  treating  the  problems  of  Pentateuch  criticism 
which  in  their  time  have  excited  most  attention; 
and  finally  some  observations  upon  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Hexateuch,  especially  the  views  of 
Wellhausen  and  Schrader. 

GENERAL    DETERMINING   PRINCIPLES. 

a.  Criticism  must  employ  upon  the  Old  Testa- 
ment essentially  the  same  means  and  methods  as 
upon  other  productions  of  literature.  Miracles 
and  prophecies,  however,  must  not  of  themselves 
be  turned  against  the  Old  Testament  to  disprove 
its  authenticity  and  genuineness.  Criticism  ope- 
rates too  much  with  the  theory  of  vaticinium  post 
eoentum  and  of  the  incredibility  of  miracles.  The 
specific  difference  of  the  religion  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, its  character  as  revelation,  stands  firmly 
fixed  in  our  belief;  therefore  we  will  not  demand 
that  the  rule  of  natural  rectilinear  development 
shall  extend  over  all  the  history  of  Israel. 

b.  Great  precaution  is  necessary  in  drawing- 
arguments  from  the  linguistic  traits  of  a  book  or 
section  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  first  place, 
the  old  Hebrew  literature  preserved  to  us,  is  but 
of  small  extent.  In  the  second  place,  copyists 
often  unintentionally,  no  doubt,  substituted  for 
the  archaisms  and  other  obscurities,  expres- 
sions which  seemed  to  them  more  natural  and 
clear.  (For  analogies  compare  the  new  edition 
of  Luther's  Bible  with  the  original  publication). 
Thirdly:  Upon  the  whole  we  may  be  justified  in 


228       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

pronouncing  from  diversity  of  style  upon  a  differ- 
ence of  airthorsbii)  rather  than  of  time.  Fourthly : 
Even  if  we  find  truth  in  the  opinion  that  "  The 
Hebrew  language  is  incapable  of  presenting  one 
and  the  same  thought  in  various  forms  as  most 
European  languages  can  do;  that  it  is  too  re- 
stricted for  this,  is  too  clumsy  in  style ;  that  when 
the  thought  has  once  found  a  correct  expression 
any  change  of  form  is  by  the  spirit  of  the  lan- 
guage prohibited;  and  it  then  passes  as  current 
coin  ":  yet  we  cannot  well  deny  the  possibility  that 
the  language  of  an  author  of  special  spiritual  force 
might  vary  at  different  epochs  and  in  different 
circumstances. 

c.  A  written  code  of  law,  especially  a  rather 
extensive  one,  may  exist  for  a  long  time  without 
having  a  universal  canonical  acceptation,  and 
without  being  known  beyond  more  or  less  nar- 
row circles. 

d.  If  it  is  shown  that  an  account  or  a  statement 
has  been  committed  to  writing  in  relatively  late 
time,  we  need  not  necessarily  conclude  that  the 
essential  part  of  it  had  not  been  correctly  handed 
down  or  understood.  Oral  tradition  has  been 
of  value  not  to  Talmudic  Judaism  for  the  first 
time.  Such  laws  especially  as  have  reference  not 
so  much  to  the  people  as  to  the  priesthood,  may 
have  been  preserved  within  the  latter  for  a  long 
time  by  tradition. — More  depends  upon  the  cred- 
ibility of  what  is  declared  in  the  Pentateuch  con- 
cerning history  and  legislation,  than  uj^on  the 
question  how  much  of  it  Moses  wrote. 


APPENDIX.       .  229 

e.  In  regard  to  the  conclusions  wlncli  are  drawn 
from  the  separate  documents  as  to  the  character 
of  these  documents,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 
each  redactor  has  chosen  out  of  the  different 
sources  what  was  best  adapted  to  his  own  pur- 
poses, so  that  between  the  complete  accounts  there 
has  often  been  either  no  contradiction,  or  at  least 
much  less  than  exists  now  when  we  compare  the 
incomplete  accounts.  Here  we  must  mention,  too, 
that  criticism,  in  its  separation  of  documents,  in 
many  places  depends  entirely  or  essentially  upon 
the  conception  which  it  has  formed  of  the  char- 
acter of  individual  documents,  on  the  basis  of 
other  verses  and  sections  which  had  been  already 
separated  on  account  of  their  linguistic  qualities. 

/.  Many  differences  in  the  legal  portions  of  the 
Pentateuch  are  avoided  by  observing  the  prin- 
ciple: Distinque  tempora.  One  must  discriminate 
whether  a  law  regards  the  time  of  Israel's  sojourn 
in  the  desert  or  its  settlement  in  Canaan. 

THE   VIEW    OF    GRAF    AND    WELLHAU8EN. 

a.  The  views  of  scholars  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
Pentateuch,  as  the  above  comparison  has  shown, 
differ  in  very  many  points.  All  differences,  how- 
ever, are  of  little  moment  when  com])ared  with 
the  great  opposition  which  Graf,  Aug.  Kayser, 
Reuss,  Wellhausen  and  others  have  carried  into 
the  ranks  of  the  investigators.  Up  to  this  time 
P.  was  regarded  as  the  oldest  original  writing, 
or  at  least  one  of  the  oldest,  and  was  considered 
as  credible  at  least  in  its  principal  points.     Up 


230       HISTORY  I^    THE   PENTATEUCH. 

to  this  time  the  view  was  prevalent  that  the  Pen- 
tateuch, either  in  its  present  form  or  its  separate 
original  writings,  had  been  completed  before  the 
exile.  The  latest  school  admits  that,  of  extant 
written  laws,  the  covenant-book  alone  existed  in 
ancient  times;  then  come  the  purely  historical 
works  E.''  and  J.  (or  J.  and  E.=  or  J.  E.=);  there- 
upon D.  foUows,  as  first  comprehensive  law  code; 
then  Ezekiels  Thora,  Ez.  xl.-xlviii.  then  the  law  of 
sanctification,  and  last  of  all  P.  Wellhausen  and 
others  think  that  the  Pentateuch  was  completed 
in  the  year  444;  according  to  Graf,  Kayser  and 
Reuss  only  P.,  or  even  only  the  principal  part  of 
P.  was  sanctioned  in  the  above  year. 

The  wide  sweep  of  this  arrangement  becomes 
apparent  when  we  consider  how  wholly  different 
from  all  previous  notions,  the  course  of  Israelitish 
history  is  presented  by  using  the  results  of  the 
Graf-Wellhausen  criticism.  Here  we  will  give 
some  intimations  of  this  new  drift,  on  the  basis 
of  Wellhausen's  spirited  "History  of  Israel." 

1.  The  place  of  worshijD.  The  historical  and 
prophetical  books  afford  no  trace  of  an  exclusively 
authorized  sanctuary  for  Hebrew  antiquity.  The 
denunciations  of  the  proiDhets  are  not  du'ected 
against  the  places  of  worshijD  or  their  number, 
but  against  the  false  estimate  of  worship  and  the 
abuses  connected  with  it,  (p.  23).  The  Jehovist 
J.  E.^  sanctions  the  plurality  of  altars.  The  de- 
struction of  Samaria  favored  efforts  at  centraliz- 
ation. D.  demands  local  unity  of  worship,  P.  pre- 
supposes it  and  transfers  it  to  antiquity  b}'  meantj 


APPENDIX.  231 

of  the  tabernacle  of  the  covenant,  which  as  a  cen- 
tral sanctuary  and  as  a  depositary  for  the  ark 
can  nowhere  be  found  in  historical  tradition. 

2.  The  sacrifices.  According  to  J.  E.*,  sacrifice 
is  an  ante-Mosaic  custom;  according  to  P.  it  is 
not.  According  to  J.  E.''  with  whom  the  histori- 
cal and  prophetical  books  harmonize,  the  impor- 
tant question  concerns  the  person;  according 
to  P.  the  technicalities  of  the  sacrifice,  as  well  as 
the  when,  where,  and  by  whom,  and  also  es- 
pecially the  how  (p.  53).  P.  introduces  the  sin- 
offering  and  the  expiatory  sacrifice,  of  which  no 
trace  can  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament  before 
Ezekiel  (p.  75).  By  the  centralization  of  worship 
at  Jerusalem,  the  harmony  of  sacrifice  with  the 
natural  occurrences  of  life  was  destroyed,  and 
sacrifices  had  lost  their  original  character. 

3.  The  same  thing  occurred  with  reference  to 
the  festivals  which  originally  celebrated  the  be- 
ginning (Easter)  and  the  end  (Pentecost)  of  har- 
vest, and  the  grape  gathering,  (Autumn).  P., 
moreover,  increases  the  number  of  festivals  by 
the  great  day  of  atonement  which  took  its  origin 
from  the  fast-days  of  the  exile  (p.  118).  The 
Sabbath  year,  too,  and  the  year  of  jubilee  were 
not  added  until  late,  i.  e.,  in  the  colle<?tion  of  laws 
received  and  compiled  by  P.  (Lev.  xvii.-xxvi.) 

4.  Priests  and  Levites.  In  the  oldest  period 
of  Israel's  history  we  do  not  find  the  distinction 
between  priests  and  laymen.  Every  one  is  al- 
lowed to  kill  and  sacrifice ;  priests  by  calling  of- 
ficiate only  at  greater  religious  services.    Accord- 


232       HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

ingly  we  find  in  the  oldest  parts  of  J.  E.s  no 
mention  of  priests,  no  Aaron  with  Moses.  In 
hoary  antiquity  there  was  once  a  tribe  Levi,  but 
it  had  ah'eady  disappeared  in  the  time  of  the 
judges.  Later  on  Levi  is  the  official  name  of  the 
members  of  the  priestly  families;  and  out  of 
the  Levites  grew  a  spiritual  tribe  or  rather  a 
caste  by  the  name  of  Levi  collectively,  which 
hereditary  priesthood,  according  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  later  writers,  fi-om  the  time  of 
D.  already  existed  in  the  beginning  of  Israehtish 
history. 

According  to  Ezekiel  xliv.  only  the  Levites  of 
Jerusalem,  the  sons  of  Zadoc,  are  to  remain 
priests  in  the  new  Jerusalem ;  the  other  Levites 
are  to  be  degi'aded  into  their  servants,  and 
stripped  of  their  priestly  rights.  According  to 
P.  the  Levites  have  never  had  the  right  of  priest- 
hood, but  only  the  sons  of  Aaron,  who  corre- 
spond to  the  sons  of  Zadoc.  The  keystone  of  the 
sacred  edifice  which  P.  erects,  is  the  high  priest. 
A  figure  of  such  incomparable  importance  is  a 
stranger  to  the  remainder  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  existence  of  a  theocratic  King  by  his  side 
cannot  be  conceived. 

5.  The  inherited  rights  of  the  clergy.  In  an- 
tiquity the  sacrifices  were  holy  meals,  to  which 
priests  also  were  invited  if  perchance  any  one  of 
them  were  present.  The  owner  of  a  sanctuary 
employed  priests  for  hii*e,  but  these  had  no  legal 
claims  to  certain  fixed  portions  of  meat.  D.  al- 
ready makes  some  demand  of  this  nature  (xviii. 


APPENDIX.  233 

3);  P.  demands  much  more  (vii.  34).  The  things 
set  apart  become  legal  income  to  the  priests,  and, 
in  addition,  are  doubled.  The  forty-eight  Levite 
towns  are  a  fiction,  for  which  the  starting-point 
lies  perhaps  in  the  conception  of  the  future  Is- 
rael imagined  by  Ezekiel. 

A    CRITICISM    OF    THESE    THEORIES. 

We  will  now  give  some  contributions  to  a  cor- 
rect estimate  of  this  newest  phase  of  Pentateuch 
criticism.  A  portion  of  the  remarks  following 
can  perhaps  be  applied  to  other  views  also. 

a.  The  Egyptians  had  in  very  early  times  a  rich 
literature,  and  were  a  peoj^le  greatly  addicted  to 
writing.  The  Jews  were  always  susceptible  to 
the  influence  of  foreigners.  Must  they  not  have 
begun  to  note  down  many  things  already  in  Egypt  ? 
Would  not  especially  Moses,  the  adopted  sou  of 
Pharaoh's  daughter,  the  man  educated  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,  have  described  the 
great  deeds  which  God  did  through  him  ? 

h.  'EiQjY>t  had  a  numerous  and  influential  caste 
of  priests  of  different  orders,  dating  from  an- 
tiquity. So  too  Israel  may  be  supposed  to  have 
possessed  a  priesthood  early,  and  not  to  have  re- 
mained a  thousand  years  without  written  laws 
for  its  priests.  We  may  very  well  assume  that 
the  priest  Moses  gave  directions  for  a  ritual 
(Ex.  xxiv.  6  ff. ;  Deut.  xxxiii.  10;  Ps.  xcix.  6). 
There  is  no  want,  indeed,  of  testimonies  to  the 
early  existence  of  a  priestly,  that  is,  a  ritualistic, 
Thora,  which  is  recognized,  not  for  the  first  time 


234       HISTORY  IN  THE   PENTATEUCH. 

after  the  exile.  Deut.  xxxiii.  10;  Micah  iii.  11; 
Jer.  xviii.  18;  Ez.  vii.  26;  Zei^li.  iii.  4;  Hosea  iii. 
4,  show  that  there  was  a  copious  written  Thora 
of  this  kind  (Bredenkamp,  "Law  and  Prophets," 
pp.  36-40).  Especially  Deuteronomy,  which, 
whenever  it  may  have  been  composed,  was  at 
any  rate  in  existence  in  the  eighteenth  year  of 
Josiah,  is  rich  in  passages  testifying  to  this  fact. 
Comp.  Deut.  xviii.  2  (^  i^T  itJ'ND)  with  Numbers 
xviii.,  XX.,  xxiii.  ff. ;  further,  Deuteronomy  xxiv. 
8,  where  in  Dri"';!y  "iEi'X3  there  is  a  reference  to  a 
priestly  Thora  upon  leprosy,  such  a  one  as  lies 
before  us  in  Lev.  xiii.  14.  "  Wherever  Deuter- 
onomy contents  itself  with  a  general  outline  and 
sketch  of  precepts  which  demand  special  or  ad- 
ditional rules  for  practice,  we  may  conclude  that 
the  more  special  rules  were  already  in  exist- 
ence which  it  presupposes  and  to  which  it  re- 
fers "  (Delitzsch). 

c.  The  new  theory  leaves  the  fundamental  pe- 
riods of  Israel's  history  without  literature;  no 
laws  or  historical  records  of  Moses,  no  psalms  of 
David,  no  proverbs  of  Solomon. 

d.  The  fact  that  we  find  in  the  books  after  the 
exile  more  numerous  and  exact  references  to  the 
Pentateuch  and  its  original  writings  than  in  those 
before  the  exile,  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  with  Ezra  begins  an  entirely  new  pe- 
riod, that  of  the  scribes.  In  the  circumstance 
that  in  the  entire  prophetic  literature  there  is 
wanting  a  demand  even  for  inner  holiness,  there 
lies  "  a  grave  admonition  to  deal  cautiously  with 


APPENDIX.  235 

the  non-aj^pearancs  of  certain  thoughts  in  par- 
ticular books,"  as  Baudissin  once  well  remarked. 

e.  The  theory  of  Graf  and  Wellhausen  not  oul}^ 
supplants  God  as  a  factor  in  the  liistory  of  Israel, 
but  must  often  have  recourse  abundantly  to  the 
very  precarious  assumption  of  the  presence  of 
fictions. 

f.  A  main  reliance  of  the  representatives  of 
the  newest  school  is  a  conclusion  to  the  non- 
existence of  a  certain  law  from  the  neglect  of  its 
observance.  This  conclusion,  however,  by  no 
means  carries  absolute  weight  of  conviction. 
Comp.  e.  g.,  Jer.  xvi.  6  with  Deut.  xiv.  1.  When 
we  reflect  upon  the  corruption  of  the  priests, 
whose  essential  duty  was  to  teach  (complaints 
of  the  prophets,  e.  g.,  Jer.  xxvii.  7  ff. ;  Micah  iii. 
11;  Zeph.  iii.  4;  Isa.  often)  we  shall  quite  readily 
l^erceive  that  "  the  transmitted  laws  remained 
lying  in  the  temple's  archives,  instead  of  govern- 
ing the  Hfe  of  the  people  "  (Bredenkamp,  p.  200). 

g.  Partly  from  a  critical,  partly  from  an  exe- 
getical,  point  of  view,  the  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament  often  experience  violent  treatment  to 
make  them  harmonize  with  the  recent  construc- 
tion of  history.  In  proof  of  this  a  few  examples 
are  enough. 

a.  Pentateuch.  The  book  of  covenant,  Ex- 
odus XX.,  xxiv.,  XXV.,  according  to  Wellhausen 
("Hist,"  p.  30  ff.)  sanctions  the  liberty  to  sacri- 
fice everywhere.  The  command  ik'K  Dlporr^Dn 
■'DC'TIX  "i''3tX  he  satisfies  himself  to  explain  thus : 
"That  means  nothing  more  than  that  they  did 


236       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

not  like  (!)  to  consider  a  sj)ot  where  the  inter- 
course between  heaven  and  earth  took  place  as 
a  spot  arbitrarily  chosen,  but  regarded  it  as 
somehow  (!)  selected  by  Deity  itself  for  this  ser- 
vice." The  actual  truth  is  that  this  passage  for- 
bids to  choose  the  place  of  sacrifice  according  to 
mere  human  choice;  and  that  it  does  not  indeed 
exclude  a  plurality  of  authorized  places  of  sac- 
rifice at  the  same  time,  while  it  neither  presup- 
poses nor  demands  them.  And  the  command, 
likewise  contained  in  the  covenant  book,  to  ap- 
pear three  times  annually  before  Jehovah  (Ex. 
xxiii.  17)  certainly  points  decisively  to  a  centrali- 
zation. Compare  Delitzsch,  "  Stud.,"  1880,  pp. 
61,  341,  562,  f.;  Bredenkamp,  pp.  129,  139. 
With  Wellhausen's  conclusions  from  Deuteron- 
omy xxxiii.  8-11,  pp.  138-140,  compare  Breden- 
kamp, pp.  173-180. 

fi.  According  to  Wellhausen,  the  historical 
books  have  undergone  numerous  revisions  and 
reconstructions,  by  which  ideas  of  later  times 
were  always  introduced  ....  "retouches  to  ex- 
plain and  to  obviate  difficulties.  The  whole  an- 
cient tradition  is  covered  with  these  as  with  a 
Judaistic  digestive-fluid,"  (p.  290).  The  whole 
historic  treatment  in  the  book  of  Kings  is  a  pious 
Pragmatik,  historically  inadmissible,  (p.  136).  On 
p.  299  we  read  that  "In  Kings  from  time  to  time 
a  new  prophet  is  put  forward  who  utters  himself 
in  the  spirit  of  D.  and  the  language  of  Jeremiah 
and  Ezekiel,  and  then  disappears;"  and  on  p. 
302,  "  The  anonymous  prophets,  i.  20,  who  are  all 


APPENDIX.  237 

afterwai'ds  collectively  inserted  for  the  piirpose 
of  a  detailed  vaticiniam  ex  eventu,  because  Israel- 
itisli  history  is  never  complete  without  this  appen- 
dage." A  particularly  unfavorable  judgment  is 
passed  upon  Chronicles:  e.  g.,  p.  219,  "Where  the 
chronicles  run  jDaraUel  with  the  other  canonico- 
historical  books,  they  contain  no  enrichment,  but 
merely  a  coloring  of  tradition  through  time-serv- 
ing-motives," p.  631.  "  Therefore  in  Chronicles 
there  can  be  no  mention  of  a  tradition  from  before 
the  exile  ";  p.  129,  "  Artificial  Genealogies."  More 
favorable  and  yet  critical  is  Dillmann's  view  of 
Chronicles  in  this  encj'cloppedia  (III.,  pp.  223, 
224).  The  narration  Neh.  viii.-x.  is  wrongly  in- 
terpreted to  mean  that  in  the  year  444,  the  Pen- 
tateuch, till  then  unknown,  was  published  and 
solemnly  introduced  by  Ezra.  (Thus  Well- 
hausen,  Graf  and  others.)  The  picture  which 
the  entire  tradition  beginning  with  the  book 
Ezra-Nehemiah  gives  us  of  Ezra,  does  not  har- 
monize with  the  picture  drawn  by  the  modern 
Pentateuch  criticism.  (Cf.  Delitzsch's  "  Papers 
for  Lutheran  Theology,"  XXXVIII.,  1877,  pp.  445- 
50. )  In  order  to  set  aside  a  proof  for  the  hereditar- 
iness  of  the  priesthood  among  the  descendants 
of  Aaron,  Wellhausen  must  falsely  conclude  from 
1  Sam.  ii.  27  ft',  that  "  Zadoc  was  the  founder  of  an 
absolutely  new  line  " ;  he  is  permitted  to  be  neither 
priest  nor  even  Levite ;  the  divine  threat,  however, 
is  not  directed  against  Eli's  entire  father's  house  but 
only  against  his  own  family.  Wellhausen  says  (p. 
2G),  "  Hezekiah  is  said  even  then  to  have  made  au 


238       HISTORY  IN   THE    PENTATEUCH. 

attempt  to  abolish  the  places  of  sacrifice  outside 
of  Jerusalem,  which  however  passed  by  without 
leaving  any  traces,  and  is  therefore  of  a  doubtful 
character."  But  according  to  p.  28  the  reforma- 
tion of  Josiah  would  hardly  have  pervaded  the 
people  had  it  not  been  for  the  exile  following; 
therefore,  even  according  to  Wellhausen,  want  of 
success  furnishes  no  cause  for  doubt. 

y.  The  prophets.  Here  too  the  criticism  is 
not  wanting  in  procedures  which  are  at  least 
hazardous.  Thus  N"i3,  Amos  iv.  13,  Jer.  iv.  5,  is 
said  not  to  be  originally  there  (Wellh.  p.  349). 
Joel  is  regarded  by  almost  all  the  followers  of  the 
Graf-hypothesis  as  a  post-exile  writer,  etc.  The 
cases  of  exegetical  violence  are  numerous  and  im- 
j)ortant.  They  fail  to  see  that  law  and  prophecy 
have  two  entirely  different  purposes.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  priest  code  and  the  prophets 
is  swelled  out  into  an  irreconcilable  contradiction. 
They  do  not  regard  the  moral  character  of  the  rit- 
ual law,  do  not  consider  that  P.  knows  only  of  a  sin 
and  trespass-offering  for  those  transgressions 
known  as  sins  of  weakness  (Cf.  Bredenkamj),  p.  56, 
57).  The  prophets  do  not  oppose  alawfulmanner  of 
sacrifice  but  the  practice  of  the  people.  Breden- 
kamp  rightly  demands  that  a  discrimination  should 
be  made  between  the  utterances  of  the  prophets 
of  the  northern  kingdom  and  those  of  the  king- 
dom of  Juda  on  account  of  their  difference  of  cir- 
cumstances :  In  the  northern  kingdom  the  warfare 
is  waged  more  against  what  is  heathenish  in  wor- 
ship; in  the  southern  against  what  is  but  the  out- 


APPENDIX.  239 

ward  form  of  worship.  On  the  passages  in  the 
proi')hets  against  the  sacrifices,  compare  K.  Marti's 
"Yearbooks  for  Prot.  TheoL,"  VI.,  1880,  pp.  308- 
323;  upon  Amos  v.  21-27  see  Bredenkamp,  j^p. 
83-90;  upon  Jer.  vii.  21  ff.  id.,  108-112.  Although 
not  a  consideration  convincing  to  every  one,  yet 
it  deserves  to  be  mentioned  that  by  this  modern 
criticism  upon  P.,  God  is  brought  into  contradic- 
tion with  himself:  what  the  older  prophets  con- 
demned, became  after  the  exile  Israel's  law  and 
the  basis  of  the  later  discourses  of  the  prophets. 

5.  The  Poetical  Books.  The  book  of  Job  is  de- 
clared to  have  been  written  after  the  time  of  Jer- 
emiah, e.  g.,  by  Wellhausen,  ace.  to  Bleek,  Intr.  p. 
543,  note.  W.  Robt.  Smith  Old  Test.  381.  Cer- 
tainly Job  i.  5  does  not  suic  the  new  construction 
of  the  history  of  sacrifices.  WeUhausen's  judg- 
ment upon  the  psalms  (among  other  places  in  j). 
507,  note)  is  this:  "The  question  is,  not  whether 
there  were  any  psalms  written  after  the  exile,  but 
whether  there  were  any  written  before  it."  If 
Psalm  xl.  7  ("Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  didst 
not  desire  ")  was  written  before  the  exile  then  the 
sin-offering  was  mentioned  even  before  Ezekiel 
(against  Wellhausen,  -p.  75,  and  Smend  on  Ezek. 
xl.  39) ;  but  if — what  we  do  not  believe — the  Psalm 
was  written  after  the  exile,  the  quite  similar  utter- 
ances, Amos  v.,  Jer.  vii.,  do  not  exclude  the  exist- 
ence of  a  law  of  sacrifices  at  an  earlier  period. 
Comp.  Bredenk.,  pp.  59-63,  or  W.  H.  Green, 
Presbyt.  Rev.  1882,  Jan.  No.,  142-3. 

h.  The  addition  of  the  priest  code.    P.  contains 


240      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

a  series  of  laws  wbicli  after  the  exile  were  aim- 
less and  impracticable.  Urim  and  Thummim,  Ex. 
xxviii.  30;  Lev.  viii.  8;  Num.  xxvii.  21.  Comp. 
Ezra  ii.  63;  Neh.  vii.  65.  Year  of  jubilee,  Lev. 
XXV.  8  ff.  Levite  towns,  Num.  xxxv.  1  £f.  Law  of 
booty.  Num.  xxxi.  25  ff.  In  P.  are  designated 
those  services  only,  which  the  Levites  were  to 
render  during  their  journey  through  the  desert; 
for  their  residence  in  the  holy  land  no  exjDress 
provision  was  made.  Such  a  fiction,  as  Bre- 
denkamp  has  already  observed,  would  be  most 
wonderful. 

Quite  a  lively  discussion  is  now  carried  on 
concerning  the  relation  of  P,  especially  the  law 
of  sanctification,  to  Ezekiel  (H.  G.,  Dillmann's  S.) 
Careful  comparison  of  philological  usage  shows 
that  Ezekiel  is  dej)endent  upon  H.  G.  and  P,  and 
not  the  contrar}^;  Compare  the  references  of 
D.  Hoffmann,  Magazine  for  Judaistic  Science 
(1879,  210-215),  which  Smend  in  his  Comm.  upon 
Ezek.  p.  XXV. -xxviii.  has  not  noticed,  perhaps  has 
not  been  able  to  notice.  Essential  differences 
exist  between  Ezekiel  and  P.  E.  g.  Ezek.  (xl.  18 
ff. )  aj^points  numbers  and  kinds  of  sacrifices  for 
the  several  days  of  the  year  quite  different  from 
P.  (See  Smend's  Tables,  p.  377).  A  priest  might 
perhaps  change  the  wording  of  the  law ;  but  it  is 
inconceivable  that  any  one,  after  the  time  of 
Ezekiel,  and  especially  in  a  period  which  clings 
entirely  to  the  written  word,  could  introduce, 
without  encountering  the  slightest  opposition,  a 
new  unknown,  anonymous  production,  essentially 


APPENDIX.  241 

diverging  from  the  law  of  the  j^rophets  which 
claimed  divine  authority.  Especial  weight  is 
laid  upon  the  assertion  that  D.  recognized  no 
difference  between  priests  and  Levites;  that  all 
Levites  were  authorized  to  officiate  as  piiests; 
that  in  Ezek.  xhv.  5  tf.  the  degradation  of  the 
Levites  to  be  temple-servants  and  the  right  of 
the  descendants  of  Zadoc  only  to  the  priesthood 
were  enjoined;  that  P.  presupposed  the  injunc- 
tion of  Ezek.  always  to  have  existed,  in  which 
only  the  venerable  ancient  name  (sons  of  Aaron) 
was  put  in  j^lace  of  the  historical  name  (sons  of 
Zadoc),  in  order  to  keep  up  the  a^Dpearance  of 
the  Mosaic  time,  (Wellh.  p.  128).  But  the  as- 
sertion is  a  false  one,  that  Ezekiel  was  the  first 
who  made  any  difference  between  j^riests  and 
Levites.  With  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua  there  re- 
turned (ace.  to  Ezra  ii.  36  ff. ;  Neh.  vii.  43)  4289 
priests  but  only  341  (Neh.  360)  Levites;  a  num- 
ber of  Levites  so  small  certainly  not  because 
they  feared  the  degradation  threatened  by  Ezek- 
iel, but  because  the  position  of  the  Levites  even 
before  the  exile  had  been  a  subordinate  one. 
From  Ezra  ii.  63  we  see  that  the  possession  of 
the  full  right  of  priesthood  was  rigidly  connected 
with  the  proved  fact  of  belonging  to  the  priestly 
tribe.  Ezekiel  himself  presupposes  the  differ- 
ence between  priest  and  Levite  as  self-evident, 
xl.  45ff.;xlii.  13;xliii.  19. 

We  can  conclusively  show  that  many  laws  of 
the  priest  code  are  older  than  Deuteronomy. 
The  assertion  that  the  command  (Lev.  xvii.  Iff), 


242       HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

to  sacrifice  at  the  ai'k  of  the  covenant  only,  is  post- 
deuteronomic,  or  indeed  post-exilic  is,  as  Dill- 
mann  severely  but  justly  characterized  it,  di- 
rectly repugnant  to  common  sense.  (Comm. 
upon  Ex.  Lev.  p.  535),  Comp.  Deut.  xii.  15; 
XV.  22.  The  command  must  have  been  given 
during  the  vpandering  in  the  desert.  Delitzsch 
(Stud.  1880.  No.  ii.  p.  65),  remarks  that  "  among 
the  nomads  butchering  is  an  infrequent  and  al- 
ways festive  occurrence.  These  people  live  mostly 
upon  vegetables.  Such  was  the  case  with  Israel. 
Flesh  was  a  rarity  in  the  first,  and  even  in  the 
fortieth  year  of  their  wanderings.  The  tabernacle 
was,  in  fact,  more  a  place  of  revelation  than  of 
sacrifice.  On  account  of  the  difficulty  of  procur- 
ing animals  for  sacrifice,  the  killing  of  animals 
for  family  use  may  have  been  proportionately 
infrequent;  so  much  the  more  practicable  was 
the  law.  Lev.  xvii.,  which,  from  the  idolatrous 
tendencies  of  the  people  convincingly  shows  it- 
self to  be  a  preventive  law.  Comp.  Bredenkamp 
p.  129  fi".,  132  £f.  From  a  comparison  of  Deut.  xiv. 
3-20  with  Lev.  xi.  2-23  we  draw  the  confident  con- 
clusion that  the  originality  is  not  on  the  side  of  Deu- 
teronomy, but  that  Deuteronomy  has  drawn  either 
directly  from  Lev.  xi.  (Ewald,  Knoble,  Riehm, 
perhaps  rightty)  or  from  the  original  accord- 
ing to  which  Lev.  xi.  was  shaped,  (Dillmann). 
K.  Marti,  (Yearbook  for  Prot.  Theol.,  1880, 
p.  328,  331),  gives  us  some  conclusive  evidence 
to  prove  that  D.  even  in  its  language  {e.  g.,  iv. 
16-18),  and  in  the  matter  of  the  narration  (i.  23; 


APPENDIX.  243 

X.  1,  2,  22),  sometimes  shows  dependence  upon 

P.  (Q). 

Yet  we  must  consider  the  language  of  P.  As 
we  have  previously  remarked,  undoubtedly  many 
archaisms  have  disappeared  from  the  texts  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  in  the  course  of  time,  and  have 
been  replaced  by  later  expressions;  and  this 
modernizing  of  the  language  has  taken  place 
in  different  books  in  very  different  degrees  on 
account  of  their  varying  modes  of  usage.  Con- 
clusions therefore  in  regard  to  the  time  of  com- 
position on  linguistic  grounds  can  be  drawn  only 
to  a  limited  extent,  namely  in  such  wise  that  one 
may  sjiecify  a  period  as  j^robably  the  latest,  with- 
out excluding  an  essentially  earlier  origin.  It  is 
therefore,  to  be  noted  that  V.  Ryssel's  careful 
but  not  definitive  labor,  "  De  Elohistse  ( =P.)  Pen- 
tateuchici  sermoue"  (Leipsic,  1878,  p.  12),  has 
arrived  at  results  which  are  incomi^atible  with 
the  composition  of  P.  after  the  exile.  We  will 
mention  here  also  the  small  but  instructive  com- 
position of  Delitzsch  concerning  the  Elohistic  de- 
signations of  color  (Mag.  for  Luth.  Theol.  1878, 
pp.  500,  596;  previously  in  English  in  the  "Le- 
vitical  Priest "  by  Cxirtiss). 

i.  Annexation  of  Deuteronomy.  According  to 
Graf's  school  and  also  many  other  Old  Testament 
critics,  Deuteronomy  was  composed  shortly  be- 
fore the  reform  of  Josiah.  Weighty  reasons 
oppose  this  view.  In  the  first  place,  the  ac- 
count of  its  discovery.  The  high  priest  Hil- 
kiah  said  to  Shaphan,  (II  Kings  xxii.  8),  "  I  have 


244      HISTORY  TN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

found  ilxe  book  of  law  in  the  house  of  Jehovah." 
Therefore  the  book  found,  ?'.  e.,  the  contents  were 
not  only  known  to  him ;  but  in  his  oj^inion,  must 
be  known  to  others  also.  The  book  was  found 
in  the  house  of  Jehovah,  where  was  its  natural 
and  designated  place,  (Deut.  xxsi.  26).  That,  on 
the  occasion  perhaps  of  the  cleaning  of  the  hoi}' 
of  holies  it  was  laid  into  a  chamber  of  the  tem- 
ple and  found  there  on  the  occasion  of  exten- 
sive repairs,  is  a  suj)position  quite  obvious  and 
thoroughly  valid;  since  the  assumjotion  of  a  forg- 
erj'  as  we  shall  j^resently  see,  is  imi^ossible.  The 
question  as  to  the  contents  of  the  book  found, 
will  be  answered  very  differently  according  to 
the  position  which  the  person  who  answers, 
occupies  in  regard  to  the  criticism  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, at  least  in  regard  to  the  fundamental 
material  of  Deuteronomy.  For  from  Deut.  xxviii. 
the  words  of  the  prophetess  Hulda  are  explained, 
and  from  the  contents  of  Deuteronomy  Josiah's 
reform  is  explained.  Let  us  suppose  that  the 
words  of  the  king  (II  Kings  xxxii.  13),  "  because 
our  fathers  have  not  hearkened  to  the  words  of 
this  book,"  are  a  bold  composition  of  the  writer  of 
the  Book  of  Kings,  and  let  us  suj^pose  further 
that  the  great  impression  which  the  book  imme- 
diately made  upon  the  king,  had  been  caused  by 
the  powerful  testimony  of  God's  sjjirit,  and  the 
king  had  no  motive  to  inquire  after  the  origin 
and  the  author  of  a  writing  so  remarkable — yet 
how  shall  we  explain  the  fact  that  the  book  found 
such  a  recej)tion,  so  sudden,  universal,  and  free 


APPENDIX.  245 

from  opposition.  An  external  attestation  must 
have  accompanied.  Hilkiali?  Immediately  after 
the  new  construction  of  Israel's  history,  the  demand 
of  D.  to  give  to  Levites  of  the  province,  i.  e.,  to 
the  priests  of  the  local  sanctuaries,  equal  priestly 
rights  vdth  themselves  at  Jerusalem,  must  have 
been  very  unwelcome  to  the  priests  at  Jerusalem. 
Nevertheless  Hilkiah  and  the  j^riests  at  Jerusa- 
lem make  no  opposition,  raise  not  the  least  ques- 
tion, yes,  they  even  assist  in  enforcing  the  new- 
found law;  and  this  is  conclusive  evidence  that 
there  already  resided  in  the  law-book  when  it 
was  found  an  irresistible  authority.  We  may 
fairly  doubt  whether  those  mighty  phrases  "his- 
torically-inadmissible criterion"  and  "pious  prag- 
matilc  "  can  make  void  all  the  testimonies,  which 
the  decision  pronounced  in  the  Book  of  Kings 
upon  the  rulers  of  Juda  and  Israel  give  to  the 
earlier  validity  at  least  of  the  laws  of  Deuteronomy. 
Isaiah  xix.  19,  "  In  that  day  shall  there  be  an 
altar  to  the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  land  of  Egypt 
and  a  pillar  at  the  border  thereof  to  the  Lord." 
"  Isaiah,"  say  most  of  the  later  critics,  and  last 
W.  Eobertson  Smith  (O.  T.  P.  354),  "could  not 
bring  a  forbidden  symbol,  e.  g.,  a  Mazzeba,  into 
connection  with  Jehovah.  This  j^assage  gives 
us  a  superior  limit  for  the  date  of  the  code  of 
Deuteronomy.  Isaiah  cannot  have  known  the 
code.  But  in  Deut.  xvi.  21,  22  only  idolatrous 
Mazzeboth,  such  as  are  worshijiped,  are  forbidden ; 
and  this  law  is  in  harmony  with  the  passages  ad- 
mitted to  be  old  (Ex.  xxiii.  21;  xxxiv.,  13.    Comp. 


246      HISTORY  IN   THE   PENTATEUCH. 

also  Lev.  xxvi.  1).  Moses  himself  erected  twelve 
Mazzeboth  at  the  altar.  Ex.  xxiv.  4 :  and  so  even 
from  this  point  of  view  we  gain  the  undoubted 
right  to  find  in  the  proceedings  of  Hezekiah,  (2 
Kings  xviii.  4)  a  recognition  of  the  demand  for  a 
central  sanctuary  which,  it  has  been  pretended, 
was  put  forth  much  later,  as  late  as  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  seventh  century.  Herein  is  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  law  of  Deuteronomy. 

As  the  origin  of  P.  in  the  time  after  the  exile 
would  be  inconceivable,  so  Deuteronomy  contains 
much  that  by  no  means  harmonizes  with  the  sup- 
position that  this  book  was  written  in  the  time  of 
Josiah.  D.  speaks  in  friendly  terms  of  Egypt, 
(xxiii.  8).  How  different  Isaiah  xxx.lff.,  xxx.l;  Jer. 
ii.  18,  3G.  D.  speaks  in  a  friendly  way  of  Edom, 
xxiii.  8,  and  utters  harsh  words  against  Moab  and 
Ammon.  Just  the  oj^posite  are  God's  words  in 
Jeremiah's  mouth,  xlix.  17,  18;  xlviii.  47;  xlix.  6; 
Compare  in  regard  to  Edom,  Joel  iv.  19;  Obad. ; 
Isa.  Ixiii.  1-6.  Of  what  use  in  Josiah's  time  would 
be  the  laws  on  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanites, 
(Deut.  XX.  16-18)  and  the  Amalekites  (xxv.  17-19) 
and  those  on  subjugation  (xx.  10-15)  and  war 
(xx.  19-20).  How  can  the  law  of  Kings  ch.  xvii. 
have  originated  so  late  ? 

h.  While  Wellhausen  and  his  followers  find  the 
code  of  Ezra  identical  with  the  entire  Pentateuch 
(with  the  exception  of  a  few  glosses,  perhaps 
added  later),  Graf,  Kayser,  Keuss  and  others 
take  the  view  that  Ezra  has  inserted  only  P. 
or  its  principal  part.     They  thus   avoid  many 


APPENDIX.  247 

rocks  upon  wliich  his  ship  springs  a  leak.  In 
place  of  these,  other  reefs  endanger  them.  We 
will  mention  at  least  two  of  these  here.  If  Ezra 
introduced  only  P.  which,  as  is  said,  contradicts 
D.  violently,  we  must  assume  for  D.  a  time  of 
concealment  after  the  exile,  which  is  improbable 
and  cannot  be  proven.  The  Samaritans  can 
hardly  have  received  the  Pent,  later  than  Nehe- 
miah's  time.  ( Josephus  Archseol.  xi.  7,  8.  Comp. 
Neh.  xiii.  28.) 

Strack  closes  his  article  with  the  analysis  of 
the  Pentateuch  by  Wellhausen  and  by  Schrader. 
We  omit  these,  as  well  as  his  copious  references 
to  the  literature  of  this  subject. 


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